Viksit Bharat begins with Early Childhood Education

India’s development goals depend on investing in children’s early years.

A child born today will turn 21 in 2047, the year India aspires to be Viksit. Whether this generation is equipped to contribute to a developed India will depend on investments made long before its members enter the workforce.

Education (Representative file photo)

Evidence from neuroscience suggests that nearly 85% of brain development occurs before age six. This period lays the foundation for lifelong learning and development and strongly shapes the quality of adult life. Research by Economics Nobel Laureate James Heckman shows that children who receive quality early education are four times more likely to earn more and three times more likely to own a home. The journey to becoming a Viksit citizen of a Viksit Bharat must be planned in the first 2,000 days of a child’s life.

In India, most three- to six-year-olds receive Early Childhood Education (ECE) through anganwadis, while others attend government or private schools. This makes it essential to strengthen both anganwadis and government pre-primary/primary institutions as part of India’s ECE strategy, so children can learn to learn before they learn to read and read to learn.

One of the biggest issues in implementing the policy is staffing gaps and their effect on learning time. As per UDISE+ 2025-26, only about 8 per cent of pre-primary sections have a dedicated pre-primary teacher. Anganwadi workers juggle multiple responsibilities, which often limits time for early education. As observed in a four-hour window JPAL study in Tamil Nadu, a typical anganwadi day leaves only about 38 minutes for learning, far short of the 200 minutes of daily play-based learning recommended under national policies.

Another major issue is the lack of commonly agreed-upon goals and a measurement process for what children in this age group learn. While the ministry of education has officially defined and published targets for what children should know before they enter grade 1 as Balvatika Lakshya, no commonly agreed-upon tool/process exists to document them. This leads to both the pre-primary and anganwadi systems misaligning on the goals they are working towards and the outcomes they are producing.

These challenges lead to three clear priorities: ensuring dedicated educators for younger children, giving children adequate time for play-based learning, and establishing a common way to measure children's school readiness before they enter grade 1.

To address gaps in effective learning time, the age groups of three to five and five to six should be treated differently and handled by different systems. As parents of five-year-olds consistently move children out of anganwadis, we should ensure provisions for a preparatory class (Balvatika) for five- to six-year-olds in schools with primary grades. This preparatory class should have a dedicated educator, quality teaching-learning material, and adequate learning space.

A few states have started taking measures in this direction. Gujarat introduced Balvatikas in government primary schools in 2024 and saw a tenfold increase in enrolment (ASER 2024), indicating strong parent demand for preparatory classes. Uttar Pradesh converted Anganwadi centres on school premises into Balvatikas in 2025, with over 70,000 now reported functional. Similar trends have been observed in states like Odisha and Telangana. When adequate enabling conditions are in place, teaching time increases substantially, up to 2.5 hours a day, as evidence from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana shows.

Therefore, we recommend expanding the Balvatika provisions to about 65,000 schools that already have a pre-primary section and enrol at least 100 students. This will require an additional 1,000 crores per year. By strengthening existing budgetary guidelines, e.g., by defining and emphasising manpower deployment as an educator, this outlay can be better directed to setting up Balvatikas. In the next phase, Balvatika provisions can be expanded to the remaining 1 lakh+ schools with an enrolment of at least 100 students in primary grades.

While expanding Balvatikas will strengthen the provision for children aged five to six, children under age five will continue to depend largely on anganwadis. For this age group, anganwadis should receive increased funding and protected time for play-based learning.

Finally, the government needs to make school readiness among children measurable and funding accountable. India needs a common, age-appropriate school-readiness tool that assesses children across all developmental domains. Such a tool would help governments judge whether expenditure is improving children's capabilities, identify gaps, and direct additional support where needed. Incoming data would help the Centre establish clear norms for educator qualifications, remuneration, pre-service training, and classroom resources, while states report on vacancies, educator presence, learning time, and readiness indicators.

For these reforms to succeed, inter-ministerial coordination between the ministry of education and the ministry of women and child development is essential. They must ensure implementation so that anganwadis and Balvatikas function as a continuum for early learning.

India’s development ambition will ultimately depend not just on how much it invests, but on whether that investment reaches children at the right moment in their development journey. A phased expansion of Balvatikas, better-supported anganwadi days, and clear budgetary and accountability arrangements offer a practical route to ensure children born today are well prepared to contribute effectively as citizens of Viksit Bharat.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Ishmeet Singh, CEO and Ashish Dhawan, founder, Central Square Foundation and founder-chairperson, The Convergence Foundation.