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Global Partnership for Education
Anganwadis: Indian Women’s Actions Empower Mothers and Children Educationally and Financially
India's Integrated Child Development Scheme has created child care centers called anganwadis that provide childcare and education for poor mothers and children.
September 05, 2013 by Mathangi Subramanian
7 minutes read
Credit: GPE/Deepa Srikantaiah
Children First: India’s Integrated Child Development Scheme
For the past year, I have been researching India’s Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the largest free public early childhood care and education system in the world. ICDS began in 1975 as a set of 30 pilot projects financed by UNICEF and the World Bank, and has since grown into a publicly funded network of 1.4 million child care centers, called anganwadis, serving 94 million children below the age of six.
ICDS was originally designed to address India’s childhood malnutrition rate, which, at 42%, remains one of the highest in the world. The scheme has since grown to include six services: supplementary nutrition, immunization, health check-up, referral services, pre-school non-formal education, and nutrition and health education. Through anganwadis, pregnant and lactating mothers receive rations and counseling, adolescent girls receive information about family planning and nutrition, and children below the age of six receive regular weight monitoring and hot, free mid-day meals.
More than child care centers
Anganwadis have evolved from simple child care centers into meeting spaces for local women, who come to trade information, apply for benefits, or ask for advice. Although, many of the Anganwadi workers and helpers have less than tenth grade education, they possess an encyclopedic knowledge of Indian poverty alleviation programs available to mothers and families. Workers accompany women to get urgent medical care, enroll their children in schools, buy medication at pharmacies, and apply for public benefits. For poor mothers, well run anganwadi centers are islands of relief in a sea of insecurity, invisibility, and frustration.
An unbureaucratic welcome
I see two primary reasons why the Integrated Child Development Scheme has evolved from a simple food program into India’s frontline against maternal and child poverty.
First, at anganwadis, no child is turned away, and the women who staff the centers measure their success based on their enrollment. Consequently, they recruit children who live on construction sites, in slums, or come from farming populations.
Unlike western nations, where providers must collect lots of paperwork before enrolling children, anganwadi workers never ask for documents: in fact, many use the admissions process to help families procure records like birth certificates and immunization cards that facilitate children’s future school registration and mother’s ability to access public benefits. Children can stay until they turn six, and if families move, they can enroll children in the anganwadi in the new locality. This provides consistency of care and uninterrupted exposure to non-formal preschool education that can make a huge difference in the lives of children who would otherwise start Grade 1 far behind their more affluent peers – or not at all.
Embedded in the community
Second, anganwadi workers and helpers are intentionally recruited from the low income communities they serve. As a result, they develop strong relationships with the families, who are often their neighbors, relatives and friends. Plus, they become respected leaders and powerful advocates for children, frequently going beyond the call of duty:
I have seen anganwadi workers and helpers buy clothing and school supplies for migratory workers, buy soap and combs that they use to groom children whose parents do not bathe them regularly, and convince local officials to repave roads, build community centers, and address drainage issues.
In addition to addressing health and income disparities that can be barriers to children’s ability to learn, these women’s actions empower mothers and daughters educationally and financially, shifting family dynamics and disrupting male domination.
Lack of funding, but hope for the future
India’s Integrated Child Development Scheme is not without its problems. Workers and helpers are paid inadequately, overburdened with paperwork and receive few benefits.They are still considered “volunteers,” although they work six days a week. Quality varies widely between individual providers and, in particular, between states. Infrastructure is crumbling, and in urban areas there is little space for new constructions.