Establishing routes for sustainable education

1. Children’s enrolment in schools showed positive impact for their literacy and numeracy skills. However, within these two domains some aspects of learning were not related to children’s school enrolment/attendance.  
2. Children aged 3 to 6 years of age who were never enrolled in school were equally as good in story comprehension (read aloud) as their counterparts who were attending schools.  
3. Children who had a delay in language, struggled to communicate and to engage in activities. There could be several reasons of delay in language in the early years but children from families with modest educational attainments augmented with high level of poverty and deprivation clearly had limited opportunities of verbal engagement with parents.   
4. We also observed that some children, who were not attending school and whose parents were not at home during the day, had long hours spent in isolation or with other siblings without presence of an adult in the house every day. This was observed in immigrant workers who moved from rural to urban settings and lived in temporary accommodation or rented servant quarters.  
5. Mostly immigrant women worked as domestic helpers while men worked as guards, drivers or domestic helpers. There was very limited verbal interaction between parents and children and possibly that was one of the reasons that children were behind their age in speech and language development.   
6. Enrolment and attendance in school was important for children where both parents were working outside. However, in cases where children were not attending school but spent time with mother at home or accompanied her to the homes where she worked as a domestic helper, the children still showed a limited vocabulary and skills for verbal communication.  
7. In India and Pakistan, joint families are common, more so in rural areas. Children living with grandparents are found to have better vocabulary and reading skills compared to children in the nuclear families. Children who live in extended (two brothers’ families living in the same house) families also seem to have better vocabulary because of interaction with cousin siblings.  
8. There is a big difference in the quality of private and government school early years learning provisions. The learning spaces of private schools are equipped with better resources and trained teaching staff. However, government provisions of nurseries lack in resources and quality of teaching. However, one stark resemblance was observed in Anganwadi centres and pre-schools of international boards – both focus on cognition rather than reading abilities. Children attending Anganwadis as well as international board pre-schools were not taught how to read until attainment of six years of age.  
9. A large number of children attend state funded early years learning centres in Punjab, Pakistan and Anganwadi  centres in Gujarat, India. However, the conditions of these state funded provisions do not fully support the true purpose of conventional learning.  

Pilot study findings of remote assessment (due to lockdown) 

1. It is possible to conduct a modified children’s assessment and household activity using smart phones and internet technology. However, in order to reach the most disadvantaged groups, additional measures are required such as extra technology equipment and enumerators’ availability in those areas.  
2. Internet range is accessible to a large population in Gujarat, India and Punjab, Pakistan   
3. Urban rural differences are clearly visible in the types of access to conventional learning opportunities. Children in rural background are better trained on life skills like swimming or climbing up / down a tree, where as children in urban areas exhibit better numeracy and reading skills.  
4. Covid 19 crisis has stopped children to attend schools in both the countries. It is likely that schools will start in September and those who will attend will catch up the learning process quickly. However, we have observed that families with high income resources, parents having educational background and parents having awareness about importance of education have continued their efforts to home school their children. Disadvantaged families, who have to spend long hours working for a daily wage, do not have much resources and awareness to engage children in learning activities. So  this crisis would likely effect children to an extent that they will be equally the same as children not enrolled in schools.