New evidence suggests that over four months after the closure of early childhood development (ECD) programmes on 18 March 2020, the ECD sector was likely to be operating at a fraction of its pre-lockdown levels. Of the 38% of respondents from the new NIDS-CRAM survey reporting that children aged 0-6 in their households had attended ECD programmes before the lockdown in March, only 12% indicated that children had returned to these programmes by mid-July, well after programmes were allowed to reopen. Using these findings, we estimate that less than 5% of children aged 0-6 were attending ECD programmes by mid-July to mid-August compared to 38% in 2018. The last time that ECD attendance rates were as low as this was pre-2000. At this point it is not yet clear what proportion of these declines are only temporary, or whether there will be a lasting impact on ECD enrolment in the country. This dramatic contraction in the ECD sector relates to prohibitive costs to reopening ‘safely’ imposed by the regulatory environment, coupled with shocks to the demand side for ECD programmes (both in terms of reduced household incomes and parent fears of children contracting COVID-19). When viewed from a broader socio-economic lens, the threat of ECD programme closures across the nation will have impacts beyond ECD operators to the lives of millions of children, millions of households and millions of adults who rely on these ECD services. A swift intervention by government is necessary to save this important sector and limit the ripple effect of programme closures on multiple layers of society.

Note: The original version of this paper was published in November 2020.