When the State enters the cradle: How China and India are engineering early childhood for economic growth

For emerging superpowers like China and India, the “First 1000 Days” – the biological window from conception to age two, extending functionally to age six has become the critical stage of intervention. The neurological reality that the vast majority of brain development occurs before a child enters a formal primary school classroom has collided with the demographic upheavals of industrialisation.

As the traditional multi-generational family structure fractures under the pressure of labour migration, the State is increasingly stepping into the domestic vacuum. This intervention is not merely welfarist – it is a strategic manoeuvre to prevent the “Middle-Income Trap”, a stagnation point where a nation’s workforce becomes too expensive for low-end manufacturing but lacks the cognitive skills for high-end services. From the boarding preschools of Western China to the restructuring of India’s Anganwadis into “Balvatikas”, governments are engineering solutions to the intimate problem of early childhood rearing.

China: Universalisation of ECE

The intellectual architecture driving this massive intervention is best articulated by the “Invisible China” thesis, championed by researchers like Scott Rozelle of Stanford University. This thesis posits that China’s rise is threatened not by external containment, but by a hidden human capital crisis in its rural interior. As the Chinese economy pivots from labour-intensive manufacturing to a knowledge-based service economy, the demand for unskilled labour is collapsing. The future economy requires a workforce capable of complex problem-solving – traits that are biologically rooted in early childhood cognitive development.

However, empirical data collected by them across rural China indicates that nearly 50% of children aged 0–5 in rural areas experience developmental delays. If these children enter adulthood with stunted cognitive capacities, they will form a permanent underclass, prone to unemployment and social instability. They will anchor the nation in the Middle-Income Trap.

China’s response has been characteristic of its broader governance model: rapid, infrastructure-heavy, and scalable. The state has launched the “One Village One Preschool” (OVOP) policy to universalise early childhood education (ECE). This operates through two distinct models: the decentralized village centre and the centralised township boarding school.

The OVOP initiative repurposes idle rural infrastructure. As urbanisation has hollowed out rural villages, primary schools often stand empty. The state converts these spaces, recruiting village-based teachers from the local community. However, where populations are too sparse, the government has constructed large, centralised kindergartens at the township level. These are capital-intensive facilities, but the geography of rural China dictates that they are inaccessible for daily commuting. The solution is the boarding preschool.

Children as young as three years old are enrolled as boarders, living at the school from Monday to Friday. This creates a surrogate parent dynamic where the State assumes total custodial responsibility. For the millions of Left-Behind Children, this is framed as a protective measure against the neglect of overwhelmed grandparents. Yet, the psychological costs are debated. The separation of toddlers from primary attachment figures creates anxiety that may undermine cognitive gains.

India: Welfare-oriented Anganwadis

And, while China constructs boarding schools, India is attempting a massive bureaucratic transformation: the conversion of its welfare-oriented Anganwadi system into a formal educational apparatus. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandates the integration of pre-primary education into the formal schooling structure, recognising the “foundation stage” of learning begins at age three.

For decades, Anganwadi was the backbone of rural childcare, but education was a tertiary concern. ASER surveys consistently show that rural children entering Class one lack foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The NEP 2020 seeks to remedy this by creating “Balvatikas” (Preparatory Classes). The policy envisions Anganwadis being “co-located” with primary schools to facilitate a smooth transition to formal schooling.

To support this, the government launched “Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0”, with significant budgetary allocation to upgrade centres with better infrastructure and audio-visual aids. The goal is to transform the Anganwadi into a vibrant “learning centre”.

However, the transition faces implementation challenges. In States like Haryana, the rollout of Balvatikas has faced “zero enrollment” in hundreds of schools, driven by a mismatch in location and a deep-seated parental preference for private education, which is perceived as “English-medium” and superior. Parents often bypass the free government Balvatika because they view the co-located Anganwadi as a place for “poor people’s food”, not aspirational learning.

The most volatile friction point is the workforce. Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) have historically been classified as “honorary workers”, a distinction that denies them minimum wage and pension benefits. The NEP 2020’s demand that they now function as “teachers” has sparked widespread unrest. Massive protests have rocked states like Karnataka and Maharashtra, with workers demanding “teacher status” and pay parity. This labour dispute threatens to derail the initiative, as an undertrained and disgruntled workforce is unlikely to deliver high-quality cognitive stimulation.

India does operate a parallel to the Chinese boarding model: the Ashram Shala, residential schools for Scheduled Tribe children. While historically for older children, there is a push to extend these services downward. However, unlike China’s universalist township model, the Ashram Shala remains a targeted intervention.

Spending on education

The divergence between the two models reflects State capacity and fiscal prioritisation. In China, education spending has consistently hovered around or above 4% of GDP, recently reaching approximately 6.13%. This fiscal muscle allows for capital-intensive construction and the subsidisation of boarding costs.

In contrast, India’s public spending on education has historically stagnated around 3% of GDP, only recently inching up to 4.6% in the 2025 interim budget. However, this aggregate figure masks the chronic underfunding of the early childhood sector. The per-child allocation in the 2024-25 budget stands at a figure that advocates argue is insufficient to provide even basic nutrition, let alone quality education. The reliance on “honorary” workers is a direct consequence of this fiscal constraint.

State as surrogate parent

The most profound implication is the redefinition of the relationship between the family and the State. In both nations, the “Left-Behind Child” has become a sociological category demanding State management.

In China, the concept of the State as a surrogate parent is becoming explicit. The boarding school is pitched as a sanctuary providing the hygiene and discipline that the fragmented family cannot. This challenges the Confucian bedrock of Chinese society, placing the State at the centre of the child’s developmental universe.

In India, the surrogate role is less formalised. Civil society organisations like Mobile Creches have historically filled the gap. However, the State’s move to Balvatikas signals a desire to institutionalise these efforts. Yet, unlike China, the Indian State struggles to project the authority of a surrogate parent. The widespread parental preference for private schools suggests a lack of trust in the state’s capacity to raise their children.

These massive State interventions are, at their core, a race against the fade-out effect. Developmental psychology warns that gains made in early childhood dissipate if not sustained. The Chinese data offers a hopeful tale: consistent, high-quality preschool can inoculate a child against the fade-out.

For India, the challenge is steeper. The Balvatika is sound policy, but without the industrial infrastructure of China or a professionalised workforce, it risks bureaucratic dysfunction. The protests of the Anganwadi workers are a warning: one cannot build a twenty-first-century human capital engine on the back of an exploited welfare workforce.

Ultimately, both nations are attempting to industrialise the most intimate aspect of human existence – child rearing – to secure their macroeconomic futures. Whether through the efficiency of a boarding school dormitory or the transition of a village Anganwadi, the State has crossed the threshold of the home. The “First 1000 Days” are no longer private time; they are State time. The success of this intervention will determine whether the billions of children born in the Asian century become a demographic dividend powering global growth, or a cognitive underclass trapped in the stagnation of the middle income.