Pre-school education in urban slums a case study of Lohar basti of Delhi

The present study is an attempt to explore the pre-school educational status of an urban slum of Delhi named “lohar Basti”. Lohar Basti is a small slum situated under a fly over in Mansarovar park of New Delhi. The main tools used in the study were questionnaire, interview schedule and focus group discussions. In the study mainly parents living in the particular slum, aaganwadi teachers working in aaganwadi of that slum, officials of NGOs working in the slum were interviewed. Questionnaire was also being used to collect the basic profile of the people living in the slums. The paper showed the educational facilities like ICDS centres, aaganwadis, day care centres etc. available for pre-school children in the slum, types of centres in which children were enrolled, facilities they are getting from the centres, perception of parents who are sending their children to any of the pre-education centres as well those who are not sending their children to any of the pre-education centres regarding education provided by the pre-education centres and reasons for sending and not sending their children to particular education centre. Through the present study the researcher has tried to throw light on the situation of slums located in a high tech city in terms of “Early Childhood Care and Education”. From the field based data it was found that pre-school education level of Lohar Basti is much below the desired level.