ECCE Education in the Global context: A Comparative Study of Private And Public ECCE Service Providers in the State of Bihar, India

Abstract

The right to education of any child born in any country in the world starts from birth. But unfortunately, new UNESCO data shows that one in four children aged 5 never receives any form of pre-primary education (ECCE) in their lifetime. This report represents 35 million of the 137 million 5-year-old children worldwide. Early Childhood Care and Education Despite research proving the benefits of ECCE, only half of the countries worldwide guarantee free pre-primary education. Political will and ownership are vital to transforming the ECCE. The UNESCO review highlights progress in some countries, but much more is needed to successfully strengthen the capacity of these systems. This research has been done in the context of Bihar, India. The objective of this study is to assess the daily classroom activities conducted by private and public service providers of ECCE in Bihar and to identify the differences in various classroom activities and the facilities provided by them. A comparative study was conducted using random sampling to select 100 private and 100 public ECCE service providers across Bihar, India. Data collection involved interviews with teachers at these centers. Descriptive and thematic analysis was used to identify key themes in the interview data regarding daily classroom activities and facilities. In the research, the service systems of most of the private service providers were found to be of high quality, while the public service providers were found to be suffering from various deficiencies in classroom operations. Comparatively, the school service and classroom maintenance systems of private service providers were better than those of public service providers, while both types of service providers were trying their best to conduct ECCE classes. Research studies indicate that the government needs to focus on highlighting the issues related to ECCE and implementing special provisions for it. There is a need for various facilities, new standard norms, and new policies for private and public service providers in this area. The state government needs to take the necessary steps in this area. Through this process, ECCE will be able to develop in its new form. What the country needs most. Keywords: service providers, private, public, standards, norms, provisions, classroom activities, ECCE