Staff Reporter
SHILLONG:
With the government making progress in the Asian Development Bank-funded Early Childhood Development programme, principal secretary Sampath Kumar informed that the main intervention is transforming the Anganwadi centres into ECD centres.
Meghalaya Early Childhood Development Mission (MECDM) Society organised a one day State Level Workshop on Early Childhood Development on September 26.
About 5000 AWCs will be upgraded and 10,000 ECD facilitators from the SHG cadre will support ECD centre activities. Around 5800 Anganwadi Workers will be upskilled to deliver early childhood education to children from 6 months to 6 years. The ECD facilitators along with Village Health Councils (VHCs) will conduct meetings with parents to take the science of ECD to every household.
Kumar said that joint inspection is currently taking place with the social welfare department and the rural development department.
“Then we are going to train about 10,000 plus ECD facilitators and we are going to position them in all these Anganwadi centres to provide additional support to the Anganwadi in providing a caregiving support,” he said.
He stated that there are over 1566 uncovered villages that are brought under the supplementary nutrition programme
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma claimed that the Meghalaya Early Childhood Development Program is a pioneering program in the country and that different states after seeing the presentation have started adopting and decided to write to ADB for funding.
He said that changing the mindset is the first challenge that the government faces.
“It’s very, very important to change the mindset. The biggest change and the most difficult change to bring is the change in the mindset of officials, of leaders, of public. And hence this important change in the mindset is very critical. This early childhood development is going to be an investment as mentioned,” he said.
The CM has urged the participants of the workshops to connect to the larger goal and not take the the program as an early childhood program only but also taking into account the cognitive thinking capacity of a child develops maximum from the age of eight.
Speaking about the ECD programme, he said, “We came down to the mother’s maternal mortality rate, we realize that it starts off with mother’s health in all aspects. We realize that it’s not just about the institution deliveries, but it’s also about the economic empowerment of women. We went into moving forward and that’s why we see this entire program of self-help groups from 4000 to 42000 groups in a matter of four years.”
He stated that the government has put forward a comprehensive policy which starts off by taking care of the mother when the conception takes place, ensuring that the mother has enough spacing between the births, thereafter the nutrition provided to the child and the mother.
Sangma expressed concern that the state as a state as a community start focusing on children only when they are 15 years old.
The Chief Minister said that early childhood development is going to be an investment with a goal to make the children more productive.
“They will be having a much better thinking capacity. So therefore, it’s not a small program and please don’t take it lightly,” Sangma said.
The CM further observed that there should be minimum intervention from political leadership especially when there is a good team working.