Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Design Thinking Dialogue

Dr. Rekha Sharma Sen is Professor in Child Development at Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. She was Chair Professor (on deputation) at Centre for Early Childhood Development and Research (CECDR), Jamia Millia Islamia in the period July 2011-May 2014. Her specialization and areas of interest include Early Childhood Care and Education, Disability, Creativity, Emergent and Early Literacy, and Gender in Open and Distance Learning.

At IGNOU she has developed programmes of study in the sector of Early Childhood Care and Education and Disability. At Jamia Millia Islamia she taught post graduate course and conducted research, including evaluation of implementation of restructured ICDS curriculum developed by the states in the period 2012-14.

She has been member of committees of Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India and National Council for Teacher Education for ECCE policy, preschool curriculum norms and syllabus. She is member of the Steering Committee of a voluntary association of academics and practitioners in ECD called the ‘Alliance for the Right to Early Childhood Development’. She has provided technical academic support and consultancy to institutions such as NCERT, NIPCCD, UNICEF, Azim Premji University, University of Delhi and Mobile Crèches. She has authored research-based articles and chapters for refereed journals and books and authored chapters for NCERT senior secondary textbooks.

Dr. Vrinda Datta is currently the Director of Center for Early Childhood Education and Development (CECED) at Ambedkar University Delhi. She has carried out projects funded by UNICEF, World Bank, WHO, Govt. of Maharashtra, MHRD and NGOs like CASP-PLAN, Mobile Creches. Till 2015, she was Professor at the School of Human Ecology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. With a PhD in Human Development, she has been a keen researcher in the field of early childhood.

The areas of her work have been, issues of quality in early childhood programs, teacher training, and impact of early childhood programs on children’s development. This has given scope to have many publications to her credit. She is also the president of the Association for Early Childhood Education and Development (AECED) which is a national network of institutions and individuals working for the young child. In 2005, she was selected as a Global Leader from India by the World forum Foundation and in 2007 became the recipient of Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship to Brandeis University,USA.