Measuring the child’s home learning environment and its associated factors in Malda: A micro-level study in India

Abstract Several studies evidence that the home environment plays a crucial role in childhood development and education. Notwithstanding, the research on that is hardly known in the Indian context. Thus, considering the importance of home environment, an attempt has been made in this study to assess the quality of the home environment and to look at the factors influencing the same at a regional level in India. Accordingly, a quantitative survey was conducted, and 731 samples were collected in Malda, 2018, using a structured questionnaire following a multi-stage, stratified simple random sampling procedure. The home environment was assessed through a set of questions based one the UNICEF’s tools. The indicators of the home environment involved (i) whether the children had access to three or more children’s books and (ii) manufactured toys, (iii) homemade toys, (iv) household’s objects; whether the (v) mother, (vi) father, (vii) any adult member of the household and (viii) only other adult household’s member were engaged at least in four of the following activities with or to the child, like book reading, telling stories, singing songs, going outside, playing and counting, naming, and drawing. This study unveiled that about 36 per cent of children have three or more children’s books, about 36 per cent, 26 per cent, 5 per cent and 3 per cent of any adult member of the households, mothers, fathers and only others member of the households, respectively had engaged in four or more stimulating activities with the children in the last three days before the survey date. Moreover, this research revealed that a higher level of variations in the quality of the home environment is exhibited by the rural-urban residence, followed by religion, parental educational status and mother’s occupational status. Both the traditional OLS regression, and multilevel linear regression were employed to examine the relationship between explanatory variables and the outcome variable. The results of random intercept multilevel linear regression revealed that child’ age, sex and birth order, mother and father’s educational attainment, mother’s occupational status and wealth index are the significant associate factors of the quality of home environment, where mother’s occupational status is a dominant predictor. An awareness campaign programme regarding the importance of a child’s home environment and early childhood development is needed to improve the quality of the home environment in the study area.