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Education Policy Briefs EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Marketization of ECCE and the Reproduction of Caste-based Inequities in India: Evidence and Policy Implications

17 Sep 2019


Author: Ketaki Prabha, R Maithreyi, Pallawi Sinha, Arun Viknesh, Arathi Sriprakash

Funding Partner: British Academy (BA)

Abstract

Research has established the positive impacts of strong early learning environments and institutional contexts in tackling inter-generational inequality. ECCE is viewed as a means to counter the adverse long term effects of poverty and deprivation. To this end, policy advocates improving access to quality ECCE. Little attention, however, has been paid to how pervasive social realities such as caste and marketization profoundly shape unequal ECCE outcomes in developing contexts such as India. Our ethnographic study on ECCE in Bihar highlights how casteism, state inaction, and marketization combine to exacerbate social and educational inequalities in early childhood. The study draws attention to child development as not just a psychological, but also a social process. Policy implications are drawn from this, to address persistent caste-based and economic inequalities in early childhood.

CBPS. (September, 2019). Marketization of ECCE and the reproduction of caste-based inequities in India: evidence and policy implications [CBPS-UCAM Policy Brief 01]. Bengaluru: Centre for Budget and Policy Studies.

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