Smriti Irani launches 'Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi' scheme to strengthen on Wednesday, with an aim to strengthen Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) said.
According to a statement from the Ministry, “The main objective of the event is to highlight the criticality of focusing on early childhood care and education. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is launching “Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi, a pathbreaking ECCE program to ensure that India has the world’s largest, universal, high-quality preschool network, as suggested by the National Education Policy."
EECE is a crucial component of Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0 (Mission Poshan 2.0) and it was foreseen under the National Education Policy (NEP).
During the event, Smriti Irani said that there are over 117,000 mini-Anganwadi centers across India, which the government is trying to upgrade into full-fledged centers. The Mnistry's event was attended by over 800 Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) functionaries from different states and was chaired by Smriti Irani, Union Minister for Women and Child Development.
The ministry discussed the best EECE practices that were employed in some states, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Tamil Nadu.
As many as 1.39 million operational Anganwadi centers across the country are providing supplementary nutrition and early care and education to around 80 million children under the age of 6 years, making it the largest public provisioning of such services in the world.
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The 'Poshan Bhi, Padhai Bhi' scheme aims to target the development of children in every domain that is mentioned in the National Curriculum Framework, which includes- physical and motor development, cognitive development, and socio-emotional-ethical development, among others.
