One for the road: A special child has the time of her life on the Maidan during an outing organised by NGO workers. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray

It is hard to win the confidence of parents if all you have to show by way of infrastructure is a temporary setup in a balcony with charts hanging on the walls. But several Anganwadi centres take such drawbacks in their stride as they battle negative perceptions from local people and improper channelling of funds.

On February 20, children from Anganwadi centres participated in a musical extravaganza — Aaj Amader Din — to draw attention to the poor state of pre-primary education in the state. Nineteen ICDS projects from 14 rural and five urban blocks in Howrah took part in the programme organised at Sarat Sadan in Howrah.

Children between three to six years competed at storytelling, action songs and dance dramas and were judged by cartoonist Narayan Debnath, poet Bhabaniprasad Majumdar and district primary school council chairperson, Sritish Banerjee. The district magistrate, Howrah, Khalil Ahmed was also present. All the 172 participating kids were given chocolates and tiffin boxes.

In 1975, anganwadi, a branch of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme, began as a childcare centre in villages and slum areas. Literally meaning “courtyard play centre”, it teaches children basic educational concepts like numbers, letters and colours through various activities.

Said Chhaya Mandal, a supervisor in Pachla block, whose students bagged the second prize in dance drama and action song categories: “We hardly had a month to practise. It becomes more difficult for us because we don’t have fixed quarters.” The practices were organised wherever there was space — at the local club, school, or the courtyard of a house where classes were held.”

Tapoja Mal and her friends from the Pachla block sang a folksong on a child’s wholesome development and acted in a Tagore dance drama.

This might not have been possible a decade ago, when Anganwadi workers were met with scepticism. “People would ask what use was it sending children to schools where there were no books to learn from. They were only good at serving khichri to kids,” recalls Mandal. But things have changed now. As Chhanda Pal Dey, an anganwadi worker from Udaynarayanpur block says: “Now even parents from financially stable families send their children to our centres. They say that children here are not burdened with homework as in kindergartens.”

Maya Das, district programme officer for ICDS, who organised the programme said: “Although 30 per cent from the social sector budget is set aside for ICDS projects, the funds are not properly channelised. ICDS does not receive proper attention at the panchayat level. The state government has always neglected pre-primary education. Today’s programme was meant to draw people’s attention to this problem.”

This is important, as according to Das, the planning commission’s current policy focuses on improving the quality of education, rather than increasing the number of students.

Romila Saha

The Diary

Colours in my head

Splashes of colour filled my eyes
I could see them all, red, blue, yellow and green.
But, they all looked the same!
Strange? I know I had seen them all!
But now they were all black!
How do I know then whether black is black,
Or like the other colours, just appears to be so!
It confuses me, but I came to the conclusion:
That all these colours were just playing with me,
Fooling me perhaps.
I smiled, shook my head, took my stick and left!

Maria Salim
Third year, Political Sc. Honours,
Loreto College