Good morning my dear friends! Today is a long post....please go through if you feel like reading. Early Childhood Education or Pre-Primary Education: Base for Primary Education ------------------- The type of education to be imparted to the children before they enter into the formal education system is called pre-primary education. This is the education to be imparted to the children in the age group of 3 to 6 years. It is considered essential as it provides the opportunity to the children to experience community-life on a small scale where children of similar as well as varying ages work and play with one another day-by day. Future prejudices and social maladjustments are removed by the provision of properly “controlled environment” for the children when they are at this stage. In addition, Pre-Primary education also provides the scope of being ready for formal education and helps them to enhance their performance standard in the primary classes. It is said that Pre-Primary education is of great significance to the physical, emotional and intellectual development of the children, especially those with unsatisfactory home background. The development of a nation depends upon the development of its children. As such the UNICEF measures the development of a nation on the yardstick of the development of children. The main objective of the Pre-Primary education is the holistic development of the child. The development includes the following areas as stated in the book entitled ‘A Guide for Nursery School Teachers’ published by NCERT in 1978: Development of Physical Health and Motor Skills; Development of Good Health Habits; Development of Desirable Social Attitude and Manners; Development of Emotional Maturity; Development of Aesthetic Values; Stimulation of Intellectual Curiosity; Encouraging Independence and Creativity; and Development of Language. Pre-Primary Education in the District In Sikkim, the Pre-Primary Education is being provided by both the government and private agencies like Human Resource Development Department, Social Justice, Empowerment and Welfare Department and private schools. Pre-Primary Education managed by the Social Justice, Empowerment and Welfare Department The District possesses 265 ICDS Centres being run by the Women and Child Division of Social Justice, Empowerment and Welfare Department, Government of Sikkim. These centres provide care and education to pre-primary children. However, the education imparted by these centres is not considered as formal education i.e. qualifying for the admission in class I (first grade) in the Government Schools. Pre-Primary Education managed by Private Schools Another agency which caters the pre-primary education is the private schools. There are 109 private schools running under South District. They have play group, Nursery, L/KG and U/KG at pre-primary level. Pre-Primary Education managed by the Human Resource Development Department The Human Resource Development Department is the largest agency catering pre-primary education in the district. The totals of 56% of children are in the government schools. The pre-primary education is being provided in the formal school itself. It means every school has pre-primary section attached to it and a teacher called School Mother is provided to teach these children. It is said that a child should attain 5 years of age when s/he is brought to school for admission in Pre-Primary Class. Normally, a child enters into the normal school system at the age of 6 years after passing one year Pre-primary Class. As it is already mentioned that the education catered by the ICDS centres is not considered as the pre-school education by the government schools of the district, the children have to take admission in pre-primary class either they had attended ICDS centres or not. This is one of the reason of accumulation of overage children in the school system. It is seen that one of the reason of failure and dropping out of the children from the school is due to overage. Thus it is thought that a brief study on the age category of the children of pre-primary class of government schools would be helpful to understand the status of children those are going to feed Class I next year. For the study, 66.82% of the total government schools of the district were selected by random sampling and the age group-wise enrolments of pre-primary class were collected. The data were consolidated gender-wise, age-wise and sub-division-wise basis. It was found that the children attending the pre-primary class are of assorted age groups ranging from 4 to 12 years. If it is considered that the entry age of a child to enter into the pre-school system is
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 01:18:39 +0000
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