Union Minister for Education, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ virtually launched ‘National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat)’ Mission & its Guidelines. It aims to ensure that every child in India attains foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27.
i.Purpose – To cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3-9 years.
ii.The mission has been launched under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of ‘Samagra Shiksha’ and will be implemented by the Department of School Education and Literacy by setting up a five-tier implementation mechanism at the national-state-district-block-school level in all states & UTs.
iii.Originally, The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) had aimed to attain foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2025. But it has been pushed back to 2026-27 due to COVID-19 which has disrupted 2 academic years.
Focus areas
The programme will focus on providing access and retaining children in foundational years of schooling, teacher capacity building, development of high quality and diversified Student and Teacher Resources/Learning Materials and tracking the progress of each child in achieving learning outcomes.
Targets
i.The goals of NIPUN Bharat are set in the form of Lakshya Soochi or Targets for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy. They have been developed based on the learning outcomes developed by the NCERT, International research and ORF studies (Observer Research Foundation).
- The Targets have been developed from Balvatika (Pre-primary) to Grade 3 to generate awareness among parents, community, and volunteers.
ii.There will be a special capacity building programme for teachers.
- A special package for foundational literacy and Numeracy under NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement) is being developed by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training).
- Around 25 lakh teachers teaching at pre-primary to primary grade will be trained in the current year on the National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) Mission.
Expected outcomes from NIPUN Bharat Mission
The mission aims to make the experience of learning at the foundational stage – Holistic, Integrated, Inclusive, Enjoyable, and Engaging.
- Foundational skills will enable children in class to reduce dropouts and improve transition rate from primary to upper primary and secondary stages.
- Activity based learning and a conducive learning environment will improve the quality of education.
- It focuses on holistic development of the child by focusing on different domains of development like physical and motor development, socio-emotional development, literacy and numeracy development, cognitive development, life skills, these will be reflected in a Holistic Progress Card.
- Capacity building of teachers will make them empowered and provide greater autonomy for choosing the pedagogy.
Recent Related News:
June 11, 2021, Union Minister for Education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ released the report of All India Survey on Higher Education 2019-20 (AISHE 2019-20).
About Ministry of Education
Union Minister – Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ (Haridwar, Uttarakhand)
Minister of State – Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre (Akola, Maharashtra)
