Delhi govt launches diploma in pre-school education

New Delhi: The Delhi government has launched a diploma course in pre-school education with an aim to build skilled staff for the proposed 3,000 early childhood education centres in the national capital.

The course would be started at nine District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET), from the next academic session, with 450 seats in the first year.
The government had earlier announced the setting up of an Early Childhood Education Development (ECED) program with 3000 centres across Delhi. 

The move to offer diplomas in pre-school education is aimed at building the capacity required for the ECED program, an official release said.

While announcing the launch of the course, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that for the success of the government's plan to open 3000 ECED centres, it was "important to build human resources capacities parallely".

"Our Government understands that merely announcing grand plans is never enough for them to succeed. There is a need to create institutional foundations on which programs can be run successfully. In order for our plan to open 3000 ECED centres, it is important to build human resource capacities parallely. That is the purpose of the newly launched Diploma program," the release quoted him as saying.

It also said that pre-school education or early childhood education, which covers children of three to six years of age, was necessary to build a strong foundation for overall human development and to ensure school readiness for primary education.

"While several states run aanganwadis for children under the age of six, there has never been an attempt to run formal educational institutes on such a large scale by any government," the release said.

The government of Delhi is committed to providing quality and accessible education to every child in Delhi.

With this aim in mind, the government's ECED program coupled with the Diploma programs launched in nine DIETs, become a key intervention of the government in the field of education reform, the release said.