Development Studies

I aim to investigate the role of non-formal early childhood education in developing the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of children in rural India. In 2015, approximately 84 million children under the age of 6 attended government-run day cares known as anganwadis, which provide non-formal early education along with maternal and child health care (NITI Aayog, 2015). These anganwadis are a preferred site for improving early childhood learning - they provide multiple services at a low-cost and the workers are embedded in the local communities. However, critics of this system claim that the anganwadis do not adequately prepare children for primary school and exacerbate learning gaps (ASER, 2019).

However, this literature mainly focusses on the cognitive skill development of children. In a recent study by J-PAL South Asia, children who attended high-quality structured kindergarten performed better on cognitive tests, but their socio-emotional development was no different from children who attended anganwadis. Moreover, studies on skill development in developed economies have demonstrated that strong non-cognitive skills at a young age can bolster the cognitive skills developed later in childhood or adolescence (Cunha & Heckman, 2010). In my thesis, I plan to investigate the relationship between non-cognitive and cognitive skills through the child development process, but in the context of a developing country. In particular, I plan to leverage longitudinal quantitative data like the Young Lives survey, which has been tracking the development of children in India over the past 15 years.
Next, I plan to investigate whether the quality of non-formal education affects the cognitive and non-cognitive skills of students. I will use a combination of surveys, focus groups and interviews to study the time-use of Anganwadi workers for their different responsibilities. I will then assess the quality of education in anganwadis, taking into account the time the worker spends interacting with the children, the qualifications of the workers, the use of technology, the number of workers etc. I then want to study whether the observed disparities in the skills of the students can be explained by the quality of the anganwadis.