Quality early childhood education for disadvantaged children: an investigation in the MCD schools

Schools run by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) play a pivotal role in providing early childhood education to young children belonging to marginalized sections of Delhi. However, literature review reveals that low learning outcomes are common among children attending these schools. Low levels of learning are often associated with poor quality educational programmes. The present study was therefore undertaken in nursery, grade I and grade II of 36 randomly selected MCD schools to investigate their structural and process quality. Structural quality included infrastructure facilities like availability of drinking water and toilets, safety and cleanliness of the physical setting among others. Process quality included the experiences of the children in the school. Findings revealed that while many MCD schools had an average score on components related to structural quality, the process quality scores of the schools were below average. Significant differences were also observed in overall quality scores of grade II, grade I and nursery, with nursery scores being the highest. The decline in quality scores from nursery to grade II is a sign of decreasing quality and prevents a smooth transition of children from pre-primary to primary.