Azim Premji Foundation has a strong commitment to work at the grassroots level, building quality, access and equity in the education systems in the country.

The close institutional connection between the Field Institutes and the University provides immense opportunity to work in synergy towards building capacity and understanding of the field of ECE as well as generating contextually relevant research.

Field members also contribute to our curriculum development and transaction progress thus enriching the courses with ground realities and practical inputs we provide in our courses.

Sangareddy District Institute

The Early Childhood Education Initiative in Sangareddy, Telangana piloted an exploratory study on the ground in Early Childhood Education in 2010. Since then, the team at Sangareddy has been involved in enabling Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) anganwadi centres to become vibrant learning centres for the holistic development of 3‑to 6‑year-old children and offer continuous professional development opportunities to Anganwadi teachers. 

The constant mentoring and support provided by the team to these Anganwadi teachers enable them to become reflective practitioners. The teachers are provided with multiple platforms such as workshops, sector-level meetings, project Meetings, ECCE days, baal melas, seminars to present teachers’ work, and teacher melas to engage, learn and upskill themselves. 

Currently, the team is working with a thousand anganwadi teachers. The team also works closely with the ICDS supervisors and government functionaries to strengthen the overall ecosystem of the ICDS. 

The learnings and insights through observation and extensive documentation over the last decade have resulted in the development of the ECCE handbook, which consists of curricular resources, materials, and teacher capacity-building modules that can be used to support the expansion of ECE work in more districts across the Field locations where the Foundation works on the ground.

Udham Singh Nagar District Institute

The Foundation has expanded its work in the area of Early Childhood Education in Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand in 2020. The team aims to understand the needs and challenges of Anganwadi teachers and develop effective engagement plans to improve the quality of Pre-school Education. 

The team aims at continuous professional development of Anganwadi teachers. Monthly workshops are conducted through hands-on activities for teachers to translate the learnings from the workshop into practice.

Recently, a training programme was conducted for 494 anganwadi teachers from 7 blocks on various topics such as the importance of early years, providing and enabling a conducive learning environment for young children, engaging children in developmentally appropriate activities through rhymes, storytelling, play, conversation and so on.