Abstract

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which has been operating in the all districts of Punjab for decades. The present study was carried out to evaluate the pre-school education components of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in Barnala district of Punjab. In order to achieve the objectives of the present study, two ICDS projects of Barnala district of Punjab, namely Barnala ICDS project and Sehna ICDS project were selected for the study. Further 10 Anganwadi Centres from Barnala ICDS project and 10 Anganwadi Centres from Sehna ICDS project were selected on the basis of random sampling. Total 20 Anganwadi Workers were also selected from all 20 AWCs for studies. Further, six children from three to six years of age were selected randomly from each Anganwadi Centre. So, total 120 children were selected from all these 20 Anganwadi centres. The results revealed that only 43.70 percent of the total beneficiary children were enrolled in register of AWWs for pre-school education. Only 6.66% children could identify 5-6 pictures of vegetables. A few 2.50% children could identify 3 or 4 of the colours by name. The government should take necessary action to be given adequate training to Anganwadi Workers about pre-school education components of ICDS scheme in order to enable them to develop suitable skills for imparting pre-school education more effectively at AWCs