Prophesying Early Childhood Educational Care in India: My Insider/Outsider Postcolonial Vision

Abstract

Time and time again early childhood educational care has been touted as being foundational for not just the future of those individuals, but for the wellbeing and the betterment of the world. I did not plan to talk about the women of India when I began writing this chapter. I justify briefly why I initially decided to talk about women’s matters when talking about children’s matters. Firstly, one common government department, the Ministry of Women and Child Development takes responsibility for the development and implementation of policies that concern both women and young children of India. Therefore, as the name implies, political action for and about women and children is developed by the same department; and this provides a political space to discuss women’s experiences when discussing the educational care of young children in India. Secondly, India is the second most populous country in the world with around 158 million children between the ages of 0 and 6 (Census India in Child population in the age group 0–6 by sex: 2011. New Delhi: The Office of The Registrar General and Census Commissioner, 2011).

Religion, customs, age-old prejudices, etc. have put Indian women in a subservient and exploitable position in many domains of life. Low rates of participation in education, lack of economic independence, value biases operating against them etc., have resulted in the women being dependent on men folk and other institutions of authority like the family, neighborhood and the society.

(Sharma 2005, p. 375)