Most outstanding, to the most casual observer of Early Childhood Education (ECE) is its unexpectedly vast, quantitative expansion in the last three decades; its sharp polarization, like other levels of education in India, into two sectors; and overall, with a few honourable exceptions, its poor quality in terms of achieving the objectives of holistic development of the young child. These three aspects are also closely linked in several ways, notably by the "invisibility" of the young child in law, policy and academe, and by blindness to gender issues.