The University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked varsities and colleges to adopt five to six Anganwadi centres each and provide academic support to them, prompting workers’ unions, academics and activists to allege that the government was abdicating its responsibility towards children and new mothers.
UGC secretary Manish Joshi has on the instructions of the Centre written to the vice-chancellors of all universities and the principals of all colleges to adopt Anganwadi centres and integrate them into their academic programmes.
The issue was discussed at the fifth national conference of chief secretaries last December. The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, discussed early childhood care and education (ECCE), school and higher education and skilling.
Last month, the secretary in the ministry of women
and child development, Anil Malik, wrote to higher education secretary Vineet Joshi about the task for universities and colleges.
“It was suggested that universities & colleges should be encouraged to ‘adopt’ 5 to 6 local Anganwadis for sustained mentorship and social service initiative. In this context, authorities of colleges and universities, particularly from disciplines such as Education, Social Work, Nutrition, Public Health, Child Development, Psychology and Social Welfare should integrate structured Anganwadi engagement into the fieldwork, internships, dissertations, or community outreach programmes of their students,” Malik wrote.
The letter said the Anganwadi centres would receive continuous academic and field-level mentoring through supervised student visits, with a primary focus on strengthening ECCE for children in the age group of 3-6 years.
The Congress-backed All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) has strongly opposed the decision, saying the move is “deeply regressive and illustrative of a dangerous drift in the Union government’s commitment to welfare”.
In a statement, its secretary Amarjeet Kaur said the Anganwadi centres were a cornerstone of the nation’s commitment to child nutrition, early childhood care and women’s welfare. These centres have brought improvement in childcare, immunisation programmes, pre-school preparations, and retention rates in the school system, she said.
“This move of the Union government is effectively abdicating its constitutional and moral responsibility. Welfare of children and mothers cannot be left to the vagaries of voluntary or institutional charity. The higher education centres are institutions that are neither equipped nor mandated to run such welfare programmes. Essential services like Anganwadis require stable public funding, trained workforce, and systematic state monitoring,” Kaur said.
There are nearly 14 lakh Anganwadi centres in the country. Each centre is managed by an Anganwadi worker and a helper. They are treated as honorary workers and paid an honorarium. Kaur demanded that the workers and helpers be regularised with decent wages and social security.
Former Delhi University executive council member Rajesh Jha described the
decision to involve higher educational institutions in the running of Anganwadi centres as a trivial approach intended to create a false impression that the government is serious about them.
“If the government is serious about Anganwadis, it must provide training to Anganwadi workers and improve facilities in these centres. University and college students who are pursuing research on early childhood education should visit the Anganwadi centres. But to ask other students to visit such centres and provide academic support sounds more like a slogan,” Jha said.
Ashok Rao, a social activist associated with the NGO Swami Sivananda Memorial Institute that supplies food to Anganwadi centres in Delhi, said the need was to train Anganwadi workers.
“The government is trivialising the Anganwadi programme by implementing this bureaucratic idea. The workers should be provided specialised training on ECCE. The government should appoint more people from the villages to better handle the programme,” Rao said.