Pratham’s pre-schools (locally called Balwadis) expose children from low-income families to early childhood education, thereby leading to higher enrollment and attendance and better academic performance in primary schools. The pre-schools play an especially important role as the parents of most of the children are themselves illiterate and cannot teach the children at home. The teacher is a young woman from the local community.

The balwadis are typically conducted within community spaces and are taught by young women from the community. The children learn alphabets and numbers through rhymes and games. The program sharpens a child’s personal and social skills, motor skills, cognitive skills and language skills and nurtures their creativity. The teachers also are empowered as respected members of the community.

Pratham trains teachers, provides the teaching and learning material and also monitors the performance of each child attending the pre-school.                                                                

Key achievements in 2008-09 

- Over 39,000 children attended 1,911 balwadis in 11 states
- In several cities, the children were provided with nutritional supplements
- The learning levels of children shows significant improvements after attending the balwadi. For   instance, testing in Mumbai showed that more than 85% of children at our balwadis could count to 10 or more.

Photo: A Pratham balwadi teacher teaches a class of attentive students in Mumbai, Maharashtra