Too Soon For School

Context:  Introduction of assessment tools like school readiness and foundational literacy and numeracy in the New Education Policy (NEP) could lead to schoolification.

NEP-2020 and Early Childhood Care and Education

• Focus on foundational literacy and numeracy with the government’s plan to start a national mission to achieve it by 2025.
• 5+3+3+4 model: i.e. foundational stage /first five years/(3-8 years) will help in intensifying the relationship between school and early care education settings. 
• Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) will lead to the undervaluing of elements of early-years pedagogy
• It would shorten early childhood education and will lead to schoolification.
• The idea of large-scale educational surveys to measure foundational literacy and numeracy will guide the value and priorities of ECCE.
• Assessment culture would encourage children to think of themselves as quantifiable data and self-managing subjects.

Concerns:

• Bias against certain subjects: Focus of assessment on certain pedagogic actions generates primacy for certain subjects like maths and languages overdrawing, music, drama and play.
• Dehumanising and Homogenization: This assessment culture would encourage children to think of themselves as quantifiable data and self-managing subjects.
• Schoolification of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) will lead to the undervaluing of elements of early-years pedagogy
• Worsening of culture of measurement: started by school readiness approach by the emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy.
• NEP does not define “quality” education for the early years.

Concept of School Readiness: 

• Three aspects of School Readiness:
• It is seen as the capability of an individual child.
• It is viewed largely in terms of cognitive development and
• It is informed by normative developmental goals, which leads to a one-size-fits-all approach. 
• It argues for accelerated early years instruction focusing on certain school readiness standards.
• Significance:
• School readiness standards would lead to shortening the period of early childhood care.
• It can be seen as a tool for complexity reduction, which is being used to shove out children’s subjectivities and cultural diversity. 

Way Forward

• Identify multiple meanings of readiness and them not being tied to an individual child. 
• Reverse the hegemonic approach where schools force their culture, knowledge and practices to the children’s home environment. 
• Prepare schools to be ready to engage with children’s complexities and their socioeconomic and cultural diversities.
• Instead of preparing children for standardized school readiness tests.
• Children’s stories, imagination are also contexts for learning science concepts, design tools and the idea of democracy, power and citizenship.

Conclusion: NEP 2020, with its emphasis on schoolification and datafication of early childhood would marginalize values of childhood and children’s care in education.