Meghalaya Govt launches ‘Early Childhood Development Mission’

The Meghalaya government initiated steps for the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Mission to address the root causes of development changes, expanding the notion of ECD to beyond health & nutrition.

Taking to Twitter, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said, ‘’The Meghalaya government has taken a huge step by initiating the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Mission to address the root causes of our development challenges. Under this Mission, we are, for the first time, expanding the notion of ECD to beyond health & nutrition.’’

Meghalaya has taken a huge step by initiating the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Mission to address the root causes of our development challenges. Under this Mission we are, for the first time, expanding the notion of ECD to beyond health & nutrition@smritiirani @MinistryWCD pic.twitter.com/8VSJP7vsy4

— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) July 13, 2022

He further added: “We will be investing heavily in the cognitive development of our children. As such, the ECD Mission reflects a paradigm shift in our conception of ECD I encourage all the officials to implement the ECD Mission with a sense of purpose, accountability & urgency.”

In addition, he also thanked Dr Jack Shonkoff and Dr. V K Paul for sharing their insights during the virtual meeting.
Chief Minister Sangma said, “The Government has been making investments to overhaul the education infrastructure, teachers training at the grassroot level to ensure an enabling environment for learning.”

He said that Meghalaya is amongst the few states in the country where an early childhood education programme has started.

He said that the objective of early childhood education is to ensure that the learning capabilities of the child are tapped to their optimum potential. 

Talking about performance of the children in higher examinations, the Chief Minister noted that the problem was lack of quality education at the pre and elementary level and hence the Government has come up with a mechanism to provide holistic education from early childhood. 

Talking about positioning Meghalaya as top 10 States in the country in the next 10 years, he said that through the education sector teachers can play a pivotal role in shaping the youth, who will become productive citizens of the country.

CM Sangma also urged the teachers to equip themselves with better teaching techniques in sync with the time.