Many view early childhood education as merely an initiation into or a stepping stone towards being an educator for K-12 or higher education institutions. Such a move from early childhood education to K-12 or higher education is often deemed akin to getting a promotion. However, Dr. Swati Popat Vats, for whom early childhood education has always been her true passion, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Despite having a PhD, she chose to stay in early childhood education as she felt that she could make a difference here.
She developed her own philosophy of early childhood education that she terms “Kiducation”. Kiducation brings the child to the centre of the teaching-learning process so that each decision made by teachers or educators has the child at the centre of it. It is education from the point of view of, neither parents nor the teachers, but of the child. With this particular philosophy, she managed to transform the way early childhood education is perceived.
To drive home the importance of the child in the teaching-learning process, she always keeps an empty chair in the meetings she conducts. That empty chair belongs to the child and so, is not empty at all. It is a reminder to everyone in her meetings that whatever decisions they take, will impact the child, and so, their needs come first.
Even the NEP (2020) stresses the importance of early childhood education. It says that 80 per cent of human brain development happens in the first six years. This fact alone indicates how impactful early childhood education is. While we have a plethora of educational boards for primary, secondary, and higher education, there is no such regulatory body for early childhood education.
Firstly, the curriculum prepared in the absence of a board remains unsanctioned by the appropriate authority. This means that the syllabus that is prepared, since it is not reviewed by experts, is aimed solely at completion rather than comprehension. It does not matter whether the child has understood what they are being taught, what matters is that the syllabus is completed. A curriculum, on the other hand, is much more developmentally appropriate. It looks at the child’s age, knowledge, and comprehension skills. For instance, the IB and the Cambridge, both have an early years’ program. Thus, schools opting for either of these curricula are in the know about the comprehension level of the child, and they are aware of the quality of education that is to be delivered to the child.
If international boards understand the importance of consistently monitoring the education of children, then so should Indian boards. We ought to have a similar kind of structure where we guide the schools to monitor the quality of education given to children in their early years.
Apart from being a leader in early childhood education, Dr. Vats is also an author who writes educational books for children. Her recent book ‘Ms Pencil and her Team’ received much praise. Many readers expressed their ignorance about a lot of things discussed in the book. They didn’t follow the research and so they were unaware of the problems of jumping straight to cursive when the child is only reading the print script. Teaching children of that age to write in cursive is like putting the cart before the horse. This book by Dr. Vats deserves all the praise it gets and more and needs to be read by everyone since it helps educators and parents understand that writing is just as much a science as an art. More importantly, it needs to be introduced to children gradually in a step-by-step manner.
Dr. Vats is currently co-authoring a book on numeracy. Even the NEP stresses its significance. Everyone in the country understands the importance of literacy, but few understand numeracy. More than just writing down numbers, numeracy is the holistic comprehension of what each number means and signifies. A child may be able to write the number ‘5’, but when it comes to counting, they may still get confused. Hence, having a proper understanding of numeracy becomes important and that is where Dr. Vats’s future project comes into the picture.
80 per cent of human brain development happens in the first six years. This fact alone indicates how impactful early childhood education is.
Early childhood education and Dr. Swati Popat Vats cannot be separated. She has been championing the cause for a systematic way of teaching and believes in keeping the child at the centre of education.
