Children in the age group up to six years attend the Anagnwadi between 11.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. every day. These Angadwadi’s generally operate in a rented/kuccha structures with inadequate infrastructure and resources. At the age of six years, the children attending Anganwadi are expected to take admissions generally in municipal schools. However, it is noticed that the dropout rate from Anganwadi to municipal schools is quite high. This is indeed an alarming situation as a very large section of the underprivileged children do not opt for formal education. BLCET based on its study has realized that the caretakers managing Anganwadi are not formally trained in child psychology and providing basic education and training to young children who attend the Anganwadi at a very tender age. It was felt that if the caretakers are properly trained in providing basic education to the young children, it would make a substantial difference in nurturing the talent among the young children. Given the right training, these teachers can “ignite the passion for education” in the young children. BLCET ran a pilot training programme for the caretakers and the response has been extremely positive. BLCET found the caretakers to be very enthusiastic and talented. After detailed deliberations, BLCET has drawn the roadmap of the first phase of the programme as under :
- To provide regular training to caretakers of the Angandwadi during the financial year 2010-11 with the objective of bringing the best out of them and convert them from merely being caretakers to ‘teachers’ who can provide motivation and basic pre-primary education. For achieving this goal, a workshop of 8 days was conducted in the month of March for the Anganwadi teachers and then 4 days workshop was conducted for helper teachers. Accordingly a 12 units booklet was developed and distributed to these Anganwadi teachers.
- A Team of experienced teachers work on the project throughout the year and monitor progress and provide regular inputs to the Anganawadi teachers. We have selected four teachers who regularly visit there anganawadi’s supervisors and provide guidance to the Anganawadis.
Now we are in the process of developing next booklet for the next 3 months. The same will be given to them while having one day workshop. Similarly the rest 2 sets of booklets consisting of 12 units material will be prepared and given to teachers after conducting the workshops. |
