As
India celebrates yet another budget, a small section of this country, small
maybe but very important, has been left out once again. After all how many people
can a government please? The budget is well defined and has allocated enough to
all concerned, maybe we in the early childhood community are not vocal enough
about our needs or advocate enough to the government about the support that we
require.
An
all India appeal to all the ministers, members of parliament and all in the government
- we appeal to you to support more
initiatives for early childhood education as they are the future- the future
voters, the future citizens and the future youth.
Through
the little ones you connect with the parents, as ‘pester power’ works. This was
proved when we used pester power this election and asked all our little babies
to check for the ‘black dot’ on their parents fingers. They not only checked it
on their parent’s fingers but they went a step ahead and harassed the life out
of every adult they came across to get that black dot! The adults that voted this year are adults
that grew up in quality early childhood programs and are now functioning as
effective citizens. Without the kind of
start we helped them obtain, they might not have cared who got elected.
Early
childhood education deserves its rightful place of respect in the community
both in the country and city and your support to this initiative will help us
bring about awareness both about the teaching profession and the right respect
among parents and future teachers.
The
budget must provide not only for nutrition - the ICDS scheme of the government
has got some barely two or three percent more than last year and that also will
only cover the nutrition needs of the children, then what about the other needs?
The early years are the most important, we need to sanction money for parent
education, teacher education, teacher training, setting up crèches for all
strata of working women, educating women about pregnancy and parenting. What
about all this?
We
want what the American President gave America; we want this for India and early
childhood education in India. As new president, Barack
Obama said in his first address to the nation: “It will be the goal of this administration
to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education
from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. Already, we have
made an historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We have dramatically expanded early childhood education and
will continue to improve its quality,
because we know that the most formative
learning comes in those first years of life.”
In our culture when a
family shares its resources among the family members, first they think about
the children and allocate resources for them. But the budget tends to ignore
this very cultural practise; let’s have a budget that will allocate more funds
to the future of this country.
I
would like to end by quoting brilliant educator Ivan Welton Fitzwater. When asked, this well
known icon had said, “I am a teacher! What I do and say are being absorbed
by young minds who will echo these images across the ages. My lessons will be
immortal, affecting people yet unborn, people I will never see or know. The
future of the world is in my classroom today, a future with the potential for
good or bad. The pliable minds of tomorrow's leaders will be molded either
artistically or grotesquely by what I do.
Several future presidents are learning from me today; so are
the great writers of the next decades, and so are all the so-called ordinary
people who will make the decisions in a democracy. I must never forget these
same young people could be the thieves or murderers of the future.
Only a teacher? Thank God I have a calling to the greatest profession of
all! I must be vigilant every day lest I lose one fragile opportunity to
improve tomorrow.”
So by allocating more in the budget for the early years the government
will just be doing its bit for future members of parliament and ministers.
Think about it.
Friends, let’s think of ways to
involve our policy makers more in early childhood education initiatives: Any
ideas?
