Child Development, Child Rights, and Child Welfare Schemes
How the exam frames the child
- Legally, a child is below 18 under the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and the POCSO Act 2012.
- The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act 2016 bans employment of children below 14 in all occupations except family enterprises and audio-visual work; adolescents aged 14–18 are barred from hazardous work.
- Development is read in four domains: physical, cognitive, language and socio-emotional. Questions often ask which domain a given milestone belongs to.
Child rights framework
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989; India ratified 1992) rests on four general principles: non-discrimination, best interests of the child, right to survival and development, and respect for the child's views. The JJ Act 2015 adds dignity, family responsibility, and institutionalisation as a last resort.
ICDS: the six services
Anganwadi centres deliver supplementary nutrition, non-formal pre-school education, immunisation, health check-up, referral services, and nutrition and health education. Growth monitoring is recorded on the Mother and Child Protection (MCP) card.
Worked example. Which of these is NOT an ICDS service? Options: supplementary nutrition / pre-school education / hot cooked mid-day meal for school children / referral services. Reasoning: ICDS serves children under six, pregnant women and lactating mothers at the Anganwadi centre; the school mid-day meal is PM POSHAN, for classes I–VIII. Answer: the mid-day meal.
Traps
- Mixing the ICDS age group (0–6) with the RTE age group (6–14).
- Confusing Childline 1098 with the women's helpline 181.
- Assuming POCSO and the JJ Act use different age definitions - both use 18.