Over 80% of a child’s cumulative brain development occurs before age 6, indicating the critical importance of appropriate care and stimulation of the brain in the early years to ensure healthy brain development and growth. Strong investment in ECCE has the potential to give all young children such access, enabling them to participate and flourish in the educational system throughout their lives. Save the Children through its programmatic interventions is closely working with the government to support early learning of children.

The ability to read and write, and perform basic operations with numbers, is a necessary foundation and an indispensable prerequisite for all future schooling and lifelong learning. However, various government as well as non-governmental surveys indicate that we are currently in a learning crisis: a large proportion of children are enrolled in primary grades, and attaining foundational literacy and numeracy for all children is an urgent mission. We are working with 3 – 8 age group wherein in Anganwadi Centres, we support children to transition to the primary level with school readiness skills and for the 6 – 8 age groups we work with schools to further strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy skill of children.

Education is the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and equality. Inclusive and equitable education – an essential goal in its own right – is also critical to achieving an inclusive and equitable society. While the Indian education system and successive government policies have made steady progress towards bridging gender and social category gaps in all levels of school education, significant disparities remain – especially at the elementary level. At Save the Children we bring in programmatic interventions to provide an inclusive and equitable environment in which every child thrives and no child loses any opportunity to learn.

As per the National Education Policy 2020, the curricular and pedagogical structure of school education will be reconfigured to make it responsive and relevant to the developmental needs and interests of learners at different stages of their development, corresponding to the age ranges of 3-8, 8-11, 11-14, and 14-18 years, respectively. Working on the same, Save the Children is working with children, teachers and the government so that education will not only mean cognitive development, but also building character and creating holistic and well-rounded individuals equipped with the key 21st century skills.

Save the Children has adopted an all hazards approach to keep children safe in and around school from natural and everyday hazards, and violence. It addresses the full spectrum of risks that children face in and around schools by adopting a ’whole school’ approach engaging stakeholders across all levels of the socioecological model (children, caregivers, teachers, school management, communities, civil society, and government authorities) to make both immediate and lasting improvements for children’s safety and protection in and around school. It uses a ‘collective impact’ approach to mobilize stakeholders for impacts at scale. Safe Schools programming has been adapted for both development and humanitarian contexts. We developed the Safe Back to School Guidelines for safe return of children in schools post the pandemic. We form and strengthen School Safety Committees, conduct mock drills and hazard hunt exercise in schools.