India should invest in its youngest learners

As much as 85% of brain development happens before the age of six. A birth cohort study in Vellore has shown a 5-point IQ increase among pre-school age children who underwent stimulation and learning through structured early childhood development (ECD) programmes compared with those who did not. Global research shows that millions of neural connections form every second at this age and that ECD has a 10-20% impact on high-school completion rates and lifetime income, which is why it is often classed as the intervention with the highest social return on investment.

Yet in India, ECD for children -- from when they are born till they hit the age of six and join primary school -- has traditionally been overlooked. We spend only about 10% on a five-year-old compared to what we invest in a six-year-old. Society cares about high-school completion and university, but not about the early years that are the simplest to address and most important for the future. If the stakes are so high, why is the investment low and how do we ensure that our children receive the best ECD?

If we want a future-ready workforce, it begins with children who can think critically, play creatively, and learn joyfully. And if we want to deliver impact at scale, the government must play a central role because scale in India means reaching 14 crore children under the age of six, of whom 8.6 crore attend anganwadi centres. Additionally, quality caregiver engagement can turn everyday moments into powerful learning, with consistency and reliability being the key. While parenthood is deeply personal, it's also central to India's economic and human capital future.

The following is what states and caregivers can do to ensure that all children receive the care and education they deserve:

Create awareness and aspiration: The government's 'School Chalein Hum' scheme in the early 2000s helped universalise school enrolment, but close to 1 crore children are still not enrolled anywhere at the pre-school stage. It is time for another campaign to universalise anganwadi and pre-school enrolment, drive up attendance and ensure that society realises the importance of the early years towards building IQ, social ability and self-control. States should put such efforts in mission mode, overseen by CMOs, and launch mass awareness campaigns along the lines of "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao".

Invest in infrastructure and material: Children end up going to private schools because they seem more "formal", with English-language education, uniforms for kids and traditional, rote-based learning. While the mother tongue must remain the first language of instruction and play-based, activity-based learning the pedagogical mode, states must invest in providing uniforms, outdoor play facilities and playgrounds, "graduation ceremonies" and child-specific teaching learning materials - storybooks, workbooks, building blocks, clay, balls, flashcards, indigenous toys.

This will improve both the perception and the quality of learning. Haryana has already started the CM Model Playschool initiative through which they upgraded and rebranded 6,000 anganwadis and saw increased enrolment and parental satisfaction. Punjab has launched three years of pre-primary in primary schools throughout the state, while also strengthening anganwadis, and is seeing the results through a shift-back of children from the low-quality private system back to the government.

Strengthen community engagement: States can leverage community workers and low-tech access to strengthen community engagement, ensuring every child has meaningful, locally relevant content that engages them and empowers parents to support their children's learning more effectively. Chandigarh and Haryana have leveraged anganwadi parent-teacher meetings and used WhatsApp extensively to provide personalised learning, health and nutritional content to parents of children from birth till the age of six, and seen big gains in the number of children who are reaching their required developmental milestones.

States will have to increase their annual anganwadi (ICDS) and pre-school budgets by about 30% to make the above-mentioned steps a reality. That translates to around Rs 200-500 crore annually, depending on the size of the state. It is a substantial outlay, but much less than is being spent on other causes with a less far-reaching impact.

If states are able to spend more, they could choose to invest in universal daycare by extending the duration of the anganwadi from today's four hours to 7-8 hours, which would allow more mothers to work, meet Zohran Mamdani's promise for New York here in India itself, and is something that Telangana has already done with good results.

With the right tools, strong parental involvement, and state capacity, we can build India's brilliant future from the very beginning. And what better place to start than with our youngest generation?

Azeez Gupta is co-founder, Rocket learning,  a non-profit ed-tech organisation in India.