Duration: August 2018 – December 2019
Status: Completed
Funder/ Partner: Azim Premji Foundation
CBPS undertook a study to develop a non-cognitive school readiness tool for the Indian context. While it is widely recognised that an ”instrument might be applicable and appropriate for the country or region where it was developed, but unsuitable in a different context”, solutions to challenges of cultural relevance has often been an attempt to adapt tools borrowed from elsewhere (see UNICEF, 2012). However, with wide inter and intra-regional variations, differences emerging from caste, class, religious and gender status, such solutions do not offer much reliability for the Indian context.
With socio-emotional aspects of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and school readiness often side-lined within policy and research in India, but research evidence that points to tapering cognitive achievement in children lacking adequate socio-emotional skills (Gill, Winters and Friedman, 2006), there is an urgent need to develop an instrument to measure non-cognitive aspects of development for children within the Indian context. While a recent study by the Centre for Early Childhood Education and Development (CECED), Ambedkar University, titled the Indian Early Childhood Education Impact Study (IECEI, 2011-16) has been able to point to the lack of school readiness in children aged five years in the Indian context based on a measure of academic readiness, a similar assessment of non-cognitive domains of development is also urgently required. It is in this context that we developed a tool to measure non-cognitive aspects of school readiness.
CBPS has been responsible for the development of the adaptive behaviour tool for school children, has been responsible for conducting the literature review, expert consultations through which the tool has been developed, and has pilot tested the tools.