PremiumThe Union government on Monday will launch a new scheme to improve foundational learning of reading, numeracy, and understanding among early-stage students.
The scheme named ‘NIPUN Bharat Mission’ will provide an “enabling environment to ensure the universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27".
NIPUN Bharat will be implemented by the school education department of the Union government and “a five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at the national-state- district- block- school level in all states and UTs".
The new initiative is going to be part of the flagship school education programme called ‘Samagra Shiksha’, according to the Union education ministry. NIPUN stands for National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy.
Foundational learning has been a constant drawback in Indian schools and the annual ASER report by education non-profit Pratham has showed for successive years how a bulk of the Indian school students at the elementary level cannot even read, understand and do basic arithmetic.
The foundational learning has also been emphasized in the new National Education Policy approved in July last year. The new NEP is yet to be rolled out.
At least 25% of school children in the four-eight age group do not have age-appropriate cognitive and numeracy skills, making for a massive learning deficit at a very early stage, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released in January 2020.
Just 37.4% of children below six are able to recognize letters and only 25.6% can do additions, according to the report. Similarly, only 34.8% of children in Class II can read a text meant for the level below. And at Class III level, only 50.8% can read texts meant for their juniors two levels below, as per the ASER report.
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