Pathways to numeracy in rural India: policies, patterns and perceptions
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Politics and International Studies
Abstract
The early childhood years are crucial to child development. Provision of quality early learning is a central focus of worldwide efforts to improve educational outcomes, and is specifically targeted in SDG 4.2. Empirical evidence globally, including in low and middle-income country contexts, demonstrates that programmes improving the quality of early childhood education (ECE) benefit not only children's cognitive and social skills, but also their longer-term education, health, and employment outcomes.
Widespread adoption of ECE provision by governments in many LMICs reflects a growing recognition of these advantages. Yet how ECE policy directives relate to actual conditions on the ground, especially among children from the most disadvantaged households and in relation to numeracy, remains inadequately researched. Addressing this gap will help bridge the divide between the model forms of ECE provision that policies envisage and those that millions of children currently experience.
Against this background, the project's overarching research question is: 'How do children's maths skills in the early primary grades reflect their early learning trajectories, and in what ways do these trajectories, in turn, reflect curriculum, educator, and parental expectations regarding children's learning in the early years?'. In order to answer this question, this study offers an innovative mixed-methods approach which draws on both qualitative and quantitative sources of secondary data that are of high quality, thus enabling sophisticated inferential statistical analysis to be embedded within a genuinely mixed-method research design. The research is structured by four sub-questions, which guide the analytical approach as follows:
1. What are the key policy and curricular expectations regarding the development of early numeracy in pre-primary and early primary grades? (Qualitative) This will comprise a mapping analysis of pre-primary and early primary math textbooks used in 3 states of India (Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana).
2. Are children in early years education (ages 4-8) reaching these expected numeracy levels, and how does this vary by (a) child gender, (b) home conditions, and (c) form of ECE (early childhood education) and school provision? (Quantitative) This will comprise descriptive statistical analysis of an early years learning assessment (combined with household, ECE-centre and primary-school questionnaires) of approximately 35,000 children aged 4-8 across rural India.
3. To what extent does early numeracy depend upon (a) earlier markers of pre-numeracy and cognitive development, (b) child gender, (c) home conditions, and (d) ECE/school trajectories? (Quantitative) This will comprise inferential statistical analysis of a longitudinal survey following 11,828 children of ages 4-8 in 3 states of India (Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana).
4. What are key gaps between the purpose and objectives of ECE as visualised by policy and curriculum on the one hand, and key stakeholders on the ground (i.e. parents and early years educators) on the other? (Qualitative) This will comprise analysis of transcripts from interviews with 180 parents and 39 early years educators (all of whom were also part of the longitudinal survey mentioned in question 3, above).
The study findings will interest national and global practitioners, policy audiences and scholarly communities who are engaged with promoting high-quality early childhood education. The project will address SDG 4.2 and provide insights that support the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda's effort to Leave No-One Behind. Impact will be achieved in India and beyond by drawing on Pratham/ASER foundation's existing NGO and donor networks of influence, which extend to international donor agencies and the UN Global Education Monitoring Report team. Outputs will include an Evidence Brief, training workshops and materials for teachers, and two academic papers.
Widespread adoption of ECE provision by governments in many LMICs reflects a growing recognition of these advantages. Yet how ECE policy directives relate to actual conditions on the ground, especially among children from the most disadvantaged households and in relation to numeracy, remains inadequately researched. Addressing this gap will help bridge the divide between the model forms of ECE provision that policies envisage and those that millions of children currently experience.
Against this background, the project's overarching research question is: 'How do children's maths skills in the early primary grades reflect their early learning trajectories, and in what ways do these trajectories, in turn, reflect curriculum, educator, and parental expectations regarding children's learning in the early years?'. In order to answer this question, this study offers an innovative mixed-methods approach which draws on both qualitative and quantitative sources of secondary data that are of high quality, thus enabling sophisticated inferential statistical analysis to be embedded within a genuinely mixed-method research design. The research is structured by four sub-questions, which guide the analytical approach as follows:
1. What are the key policy and curricular expectations regarding the development of early numeracy in pre-primary and early primary grades? (Qualitative) This will comprise a mapping analysis of pre-primary and early primary math textbooks used in 3 states of India (Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana).
2. Are children in early years education (ages 4-8) reaching these expected numeracy levels, and how does this vary by (a) child gender, (b) home conditions, and (c) form of ECE (early childhood education) and school provision? (Quantitative) This will comprise descriptive statistical analysis of an early years learning assessment (combined with household, ECE-centre and primary-school questionnaires) of approximately 35,000 children aged 4-8 across rural India.
3. To what extent does early numeracy depend upon (a) earlier markers of pre-numeracy and cognitive development, (b) child gender, (c) home conditions, and (d) ECE/school trajectories? (Quantitative) This will comprise inferential statistical analysis of a longitudinal survey following 11,828 children of ages 4-8 in 3 states of India (Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana).
4. What are key gaps between the purpose and objectives of ECE as visualised by policy and curriculum on the one hand, and key stakeholders on the ground (i.e. parents and early years educators) on the other? (Qualitative) This will comprise analysis of transcripts from interviews with 180 parents and 39 early years educators (all of whom were also part of the longitudinal survey mentioned in question 3, above).
The study findings will interest national and global practitioners, policy audiences and scholarly communities who are engaged with promoting high-quality early childhood education. The project will address SDG 4.2 and provide insights that support the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda's effort to Leave No-One Behind. Impact will be achieved in India and beyond by drawing on Pratham/ASER foundation's existing NGO and donor networks of influence, which extend to international donor agencies and the UN Global Education Monitoring Report team. Outputs will include an Evidence Brief, training workshops and materials for teachers, and two academic papers.
Planned Impact
Provision of quality early learning is a central focus of worldwide efforts to improve educational outcomes, and is specifically targeted in SDG 4.2. This project aims to investigate the causes of poor pre-numeracy and early numeracy abilities among children in rural India. Its overarching research question situates children's early numeracy learning trajectories within the context of curriculum, educator, and parental expectations regarding children's learning. While the study is based on data from India, similarly poor learning trajectories exist in many LMICs. Research findings will have three direct areas of impact, both in India and other LMICs: early years curriculum design; communication and engagement with parents; and training for educators.
In India, beneficiaries of this research include:
Early Years Programme Staff, Pratham: Pratham's early years interventions currently reach over 350,000 children in rural and marginalised urban communities across 13 states. The national Pratham Early Years leadership team will be an important audience for dissemination of findings, which will directly inform future programming with respect to curriculum development, community engagement and educator training.
State government early years programmes: As states develop processes and content in line with new policy objectives integrating pre-primary and primary grades into a single continuum, findings from this study will be relevant for development of pre-numeracy and early numeracy methods and materials. The ongoing early years partnerships between Pratham and 7 state governments provide an established and natural conduit for achieving this impact, potentially benefitting 300,000 children in these locations.
NGOs and research organisations with early years focus: Over 30 NGOs and universities were involved with the IECEI study and/or will partner to conduct the upcoming ASER 2019 Early Years survey: these are the two projects whose data will be mined in the proposed project. Pratham and ASER's extensive relationships with these and other organisations in the early years space will be leveraged to create a network of platforms for sharing of findings from this research.
Internationally, key beneficiaries include:
PAL Network members in 13 LMICs: The multi-country PAL evidence used in Project 1 demonstrates that children's foundational reading and maths skills are very poor. Member organisations are currently planning an assessment of basic math ability among children age 5-16 across all network countries using a common assessment tool, and evidence from Project 2 would feed into a next phase of this activity. Project Co-I Dr Bhattacharjea is chairperson of the PAL board of Directors and in that capacity can facilitate these impacts.
International institutions supporting SDG 4.2 (e.g. UNICEF, DFID, GEM): UNICEF was the primary supporter of the IECEI study that generated the data to be used in the current project; other international organisations such as the World Bank were part of the study's advisory group. DFID is an important funder of the PAL Network. The Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM) team evinced interest in Project 1's findings from and will be similarly interested in this follow up project.
Principal mechanisms for achieving these impacts are: 1) Dissemination of an 8 page Evidence to Action brief that summarises project findings and relevance (primary audience: policy makers and academics); 2) dissemination of a resource book of activities that early years educators and parents can do with young children to encourage cognitive and pre-numeracy skills development (primary audience: parents and early years educators); 3) A plan and materials for a half day workshop to work through project findings and their implications with groups of key stakeholders; 4) Two workshops with key stakeholders in India and one in Nairobi, to present and discuss project findings.
In India, beneficiaries of this research include:
Early Years Programme Staff, Pratham: Pratham's early years interventions currently reach over 350,000 children in rural and marginalised urban communities across 13 states. The national Pratham Early Years leadership team will be an important audience for dissemination of findings, which will directly inform future programming with respect to curriculum development, community engagement and educator training.
State government early years programmes: As states develop processes and content in line with new policy objectives integrating pre-primary and primary grades into a single continuum, findings from this study will be relevant for development of pre-numeracy and early numeracy methods and materials. The ongoing early years partnerships between Pratham and 7 state governments provide an established and natural conduit for achieving this impact, potentially benefitting 300,000 children in these locations.
NGOs and research organisations with early years focus: Over 30 NGOs and universities were involved with the IECEI study and/or will partner to conduct the upcoming ASER 2019 Early Years survey: these are the two projects whose data will be mined in the proposed project. Pratham and ASER's extensive relationships with these and other organisations in the early years space will be leveraged to create a network of platforms for sharing of findings from this research.
Internationally, key beneficiaries include:
PAL Network members in 13 LMICs: The multi-country PAL evidence used in Project 1 demonstrates that children's foundational reading and maths skills are very poor. Member organisations are currently planning an assessment of basic math ability among children age 5-16 across all network countries using a common assessment tool, and evidence from Project 2 would feed into a next phase of this activity. Project Co-I Dr Bhattacharjea is chairperson of the PAL board of Directors and in that capacity can facilitate these impacts.
International institutions supporting SDG 4.2 (e.g. UNICEF, DFID, GEM): UNICEF was the primary supporter of the IECEI study that generated the data to be used in the current project; other international organisations such as the World Bank were part of the study's advisory group. DFID is an important funder of the PAL Network. The Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM) team evinced interest in Project 1's findings from and will be similarly interested in this follow up project.
Principal mechanisms for achieving these impacts are: 1) Dissemination of an 8 page Evidence to Action brief that summarises project findings and relevance (primary audience: policy makers and academics); 2) dissemination of a resource book of activities that early years educators and parents can do with young children to encourage cognitive and pre-numeracy skills development (primary audience: parents and early years educators); 3) A plan and materials for a half day workshop to work through project findings and their implications with groups of key stakeholders; 4) Two workshops with key stakeholders in India and one in Nairobi, to present and discuss project findings.
Organisations
| Description | Detailed investigation of the continuum of learning in early years mathematics with reference to international practices offers clear direction for the curricular development that the National Education Policy 2020 has catalysed. Our analysis shows there is poor continuity of early learning (numeracy) across pre-primary/primary schooling in India, with challenges relating both to transition across 'levels' (institutional arrangements / curriculum development responsibilities) and to cumulative learning of topics, both of which create fractures that shed light on the poor learning outcomes that are well documented for early years education (numeracy) in India. Inconsistent adherence across three sample states to national learning outcomes and curricular expectations is reflected in gaps which have been identified for future curriculum development input. there is very limited scholarly engagement with early years numeracy in LMIC contexts. The project has submitted an academic paper outlining key findings to an early childhood education journal. |
| Exploitation Route | Covid has had negative impacts on journal refereeing turnaround, so we await acceptance of our first article which brings our findings to a wide international audience interested in early years education/early years maths. This may be a foundational paper for further research / practitioner attention. The focus on mathematics is important as current characterisations of the 'learning crisis' in the Global South are biased towards literacy. The pilot project (University of Leeds funded) which led to P2N gave rise to two Evidence Briefs, one of which is cited in UNESCO's 2019-20 Global Education Monitoring Report so we are confident that the upcoming P2N work will be similarly drawn upon, reflecting global interest in early childhood education, the paucity of work - and need for better evidence to inform policy - on early years mathematics. The Evidence Brief we are preparing will play a key role in providing insights/advocacy for the upcoming national curriculum development initiative. |
| Sectors | Education |
| Description | We convened an online meeting with advocacy partners in India to discuss findings and the shape of the Evidence Brief which will be published later in the year. This built on our earlier inputs to informal consultations on early childhood education to create an advocacy network to shape upcoming curriculum development. We have actively sought to create an environment that is receptive to the P2N evidence. This resulted in Pratham requesting the team to completed the Evidence Brief which was published internally as a Pratham publication. It is now being used within the organisation and beyond for advocacy. We drew on this to develop an short input for a key national platform, Ideas for India, that is read by policy communities and wider society. We shared our Evidence Brief and this input with our informal advisory team, who had co-authored the large-scale studies P2N drew upon. They have undertaken advocacy using this evidence in ongoing policy negotiations around implementation of India's NEP 2020 (updated 2022). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | inputs to informal working group on early years curriculum |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Description | Policy brief development |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 10 workshops with 12 ASER junior researchers to help them turn their accepted CIES proposals into short 'evidence briefs' in a series running from 29 Jan-2 March. These will be used for policy impact using the project's wider network. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | internal workshop disseminating findings on early childhood education / numeracy with Pratham staff who work in central/regional offices across India. The activity will impact on policy debates re ECE curriculum development to follow up on pledges made in the 2020 National Education Policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |