AWCs as Drivers of Gender-Transformative ECCE
Insights from our Visits to 17 Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) Across 5 States
Our journey into understanding the influence of gender in early childhood education began where it matters most—inside Anganwadi Centers (AWCs) themselves. For one full month, our team immersed ourselves in the daily lives of 18 centers spanning Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and NCR. We spent entire days at each location—arriving before the first child and leaving only after the last goodbye. Despite the challenge of becoming 'invisible' among 20 energetic and curious young children, we committed to observing as naturally as possible, watching daily rhythms unfold without interference. What follows are the stories and patterns that emerged from these quiet moments of observation.
Silver Linings: Turning the Investment Gap into a Springboard for Girls' Success
As my colleague and I nestled into a corner of an AWC in Gurgaon’s Wazirabad village, my gaze swept across the room, trying to count the number of girls and boys. We repeated this silent tallying throughout our next 17 Anganwadi visits, and soon we started spotting patterns— in more than half the places we visited, there were more girls than boys. At first, we thought this was great - more girls getting early education, right? But conversations with Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) quickly revealed a less encouraging story - "Some parents send their sons to 'English medium' schools" they'd tell us, painting a more complicated picture of why girls were filling these centers. ASER’s Early Years survey validates this observation. According to the survey, across the age group of 4-5 56.8% girls as compared to 50.4% boys are enrolled in government pre-schools and schools. As children grow slightly older, the gap widens: 61% of girls are enrolled in government pre-schools and schools at ages 6–8, compared to just 52% of boys, who are more likely to be sent to private schools-driven by the perception that these schools offer better quality education.
While this finding underscores the stark reality of underinvestment in girls' education, it also presents a critical opportunity to transform the lives of millions of young girls. With girls relying more heavily on public services than boys, the world's largest childcare network—the Anganwadi Centers—holds immense potential to become powerful learning hubs for girls across the country. By strengthening the quality of learning at these centers, we can directly enhance the educational outcomes for girls, ensuring they graduate from early childhood education with a solid foundation that prepares them for success in primary school and beyond.
Opening Doors: Creating Spaces Where Choices Expand
Toys play an important role in children’s gender socialisation and educational pathways. They stimulate pretend play and social play as well as the development of cognitive skills (Cherney and Dempsey 2010). Across the world, giving different toys to boys and girls is a common practice, and children’s home environments often reflect these norms. Stereotypically feminine toys, like dolls, kitchen sets etc., relate to nurturance, care, attractiveness, and beauty, whereas stereotypically masculine toys like cars and guns relate to technology, competition, aggression, construction, and action (Blakemore and Centers 2005; Campenni 1999). Playing with only a certain type of toy poses the risk of reinforcing stereotypical roles and restricting children’s individual development potential (Cherney et al. 2003; Francis 2010; Jirout and Newcombe 2015; Li and Wong 2016).
This is where AWCs can play a pivotal role. By offering exposure to diverse learning experiences, AWCs can provide a powerful antidote to these limiting expectations. When we visited AWCs, we saw boys and girls equally engaged with the materials available to them—puzzles, blocks, stacking rings—suggesting that when provided with access to gender-neutral resources, all children, regardless of gender, are likely to play with them. This creates a fertile ground for gender-transformative education, where learning materials themselves become vehicles for fostering equality.
This shift towards gender-inclusive learning doesn’t demand a complete overhaul of existing practices—it’s already happening. In every AWC we visited, we saw workers treating all children with equal care and affection. Regardless of gender, every child was given equal access to toys, opportunities to participate, and the support they needed. The only intervention from the AWWs was to mediate disputes over sharing—an act that reinforces the natural environment of fairness and equality. AWCs can thus provide a space where children have access to a wide range of toys and activities, free from the gendered expectations they may face at home. By engaging with diverse materials, children can explore a full spectrum of developmental skills, from cognitive to emotional to social, without the constraints of traditional gender roles.
Real-Life Success Stories: AWWs as Everyday Inspiration
Children’s aspirations are shaped by the world around them, often by the norms they see and internalise from an early age. Studies in social psychology also tell us that our aspirations are deeply influenced by those in our immediate surroundings (Bandura, 1997; Bandura, 1991) and how the lack of diverse role models can limit choices and shape behaviours in ways that are invisible but profoundly impactful (Appadurai, 2004). By the time children reach the age of 3, they’ve already absorbed societal and gender norms that can restrict their potential. This is particularly true for many young girls, whose home environment offers limited exposure to broader possibilities.
In our visit to an AWC in Dhule, Maharashtra, we encountered a striking example of this. A 13-year-old girl was asked whether she would like to continue her education or marry, and she chose marriage without hesitation. Her aspirations were shaped by the narrow range of role models around her—a powerful reminder of how deeply gender norms can confine children’s futures.
Most of the role models of the children at AWCs embody the idea that care and household work is for women and working outside the home is for men. In this landscape, AWWs represent the potential of women to build a career, gain respect in their communities and provide financial support to their families. At almost 14 lakh, AWWs are one of the largest collectives of working women in the country, forming the backbone of the world’s largest community based programme for child development. Collectively, they represent 90L+ children and their parents. From our work with workers over the last few years, we’ve found that their role makes them uniquely positioned to champion gender inclusion. Not only are they influential pillars of the community, but as working women often supporting their families, they themselves are radical role models representing gender equality. Often having battled several biases themselves, for many AWWs the fight for gender equality can also be deeply personal.
While media and teaching-learning materials (TLM) can effectively highlight stories of empowerment, the AWW herself serves as a deeply relatable and powerful role model. As a woman from the same village and socio-economic background as the children, she holds far greater potential to influence their aspirations and educational outcomes than someone they might only encounter in a book or movie (Nguyen, 2008).
Trusted Voices: How AWWs Can Shift Community Thinking
One of the most poignant sights during our visits was the presence of older girls—often around 8-10 years old—standing on the fringes of the classroom, detached and disengaged. While the younger children were immersed in playful learning, these older girls appeared distant, sometimes lost in their thoughts. When we inquired, we learned that these girls were often sent by their parents to care for younger siblings—a responsibility that drew them away from their own education.
This recurring pattern across various AWCs paints a troubling picture: girls, even at a young age, are being thrust into caregiving roles, reinforcing societal expectations that limit their potential. The Young Lives Survey underscores the potential long-term consequences of this trend (Young Lives); women who marry early and bear children under vulnerable socio-economic conditions face severe educational setbacks. Only 1 in 3 girls who marry young have the chance to pursue education beyond primary school, severely limiting their career opportunities and earning potential and perpetuating cycles of poverty and dependency (UNICEF)(Girls Not Brides). This early caregiving burden not only stifles their future prospects but also exposes them to increased risks of maternal complications, mental health challenges, and economic insecurity. These effects extend beyond the girls themselves, impacting their families and communities as a whole (UNFPA).
While the mindset behind this behaviour is not easy to change, it becomes even more challenging when approached by outsiders—individuals whose lived realities are vastly different from those they are trying to reach. This is where AWWs play a crucial role. AWWs are much more than caregivers and educators; they are trusted pillars of support and influence in their communities. With years of experience—many with over 10, even up to 35 years of service—AWWs play an irreplaceable role, not just within the walls of the Anganwadi center, but throughout the village. Their work reaches beyond child care to conducting home visits, ensuring that parents follow guidance, and offering emotional and practical support to families. Their influence is often akin to that of an elder sister, allowing them to break through some existing gender barriers and reach out to fathers, brothers, and mothers alike. Their ability to navigate intra household dynamics makes them vital in shifting attitudes, breaking barriers, and championing gender equality.
Despite limited support for an array of tasks they lead, we met several AWWs who remained fiercely committed to the well-being of the children and families they serve. An example of this dedication stood out during our visit to Gurgaon, where an AWW recounted her efforts to persuade the parents of an older girl to enroll her in school rather than keep her at home to care for her younger sibling. Even with her overwhelming workload, the AWW offered to care for the younger children beyond regular hours, ensuring the girl could attend school and continue her education.
Leveraging AWWs’ support for this approach will undoubtedly require rigorous training and come with its challenges—not all AWWs may feel equally invested in this mission. During our visits, we did observe subtle yet telling signs of some ingrained gender biases. While younger workers were passionate about girls' education, older workers sometimes revealed their biases, lamenting the fact that many recent births in their communities were girls or making offhand comments about mothers’ attire.
Despite this, AWWs remain powerful levers for spreading the message of gender inclusion on a large scale. With their widespread presence and trusted relationships within rural communities, AWWs have unique access to children and families. As frontline workers, they can amplify these messages throughout their communities, creating a ripple effect for meaningful social transformation.
As we concluded up our month-long journey exploring AWCs through a gender lens, we left feeling mostly hopeful. While secondary research and our own preconceptions had shaped what we expected to see, on the ground, things weren’t as black and white as we had imagined. AWCs didn’t fit neatly into one extreme or the other; instead, they felt like spaces where traditional norms and shifting aspirations intersect. More than anything, they felt full of possibility—places where small, thoughtful interventions could help pave the way for a more gender-equitable future for India’s youngest learners.
Edited by Apurva Design (Lead - Communications, Rocket Learning)