Context

• More than half the children in India are unable to read fluently with comprehension or do basic mathematical operations by the end of primary schooling.
• To address this, the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) suggested a national mission, NIPUN Bharat Programme, to ensure that all children attain foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3.

Highlights of the New Education Policy 2020

• The new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is the first education policy of the 21st century in India, which replaces the previous National Policy on Education (NPE) 1986.
• The Ministry of Education formed a committee under  Dr. K Kasturirangan, which outlined this new policy. 
• The NEP 2020 proposes various reforms in school and higher education, including technical education, that are suited to 21st-century needs. 
• There are 5 foundational pillars of NEP 2020:Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability, and Accountability.
• This policy is aligned with the 2030 SDGs and aims to transform India into a vibrant knowledge society and global knowledge superpower by making both school and college education more holistic, flexible, and multidisciplinary, bringing out the unique capabilities of each student.

NIPUN Bharat Programme Under NEP 2020

• Objective
  • To create an enabling environment to ensure 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.
• Focus Areas: It 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.
• Implementation
  • NIPUN Bharat will be implemented by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
  • A five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at the National- State- District- Block- School level in all States and UTs, under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha.
  • Samagra Shiksha programme was launched subsuming 3 existing schemes - Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE) - to treat school education holistically, from pre-school to Class XII.

Recent Decision/Rationale to Roll back the Scope of the Nipun Bharat Mission

• In a recent decision, the Ministry of Education has rolled back the scope of NIPUN Bharat to children in Grades 1-2, leaving out children in Grade 3.
• The rationale provided for this shift is to bring about the alignment between NIPUN Bharat and the curricular structure suggested by the NEP 2020 and the National Curricular Framework (NCF 2023).
• These latter documents envisage a foundational stage of learning that would include three years of preschool education and the first two years of primary schooling.
• Hence, the argument is that the NIPUN Bharat programme should also end at Grade 2.

Why Duration of Early Literacy and Numeracy Programmes Must be Increased?

• Due to Limited Role of Aanganwadi Centres
  • Anganwadi centres catering to 3–6-year-olds focus largely on health, immunisation, and nutrition, and only a small proportion of centres provide pre-school education with any regularity or quality.
  • In this context, the setting up of 3–8-year block in which children receive well-planned, high-quality educational services is still a distant goal.
• Due to Lack of Access to Education for 3-6 age Group Children
  • Approximately 68 per cent of children in the three to six-year age group are not able to access educational services in India.
  • Most children come from poorly literate background and encounter literacy for the first time in Grade 1.
• Complex Gap Between Home and School Languages
  • Thirty-five per cent of children spend several years of primary schooling navigating complex gaps between home and school languages.
  • Therefore, to roll back a programme that supports the learning of children in Grade 3 does not seem to be a good decision. 

Suggestions to Increase Support for Early Literacy and Numeracy

• Extra Support for Children Through Grades 1-5
  • So that they have enough time to establish robust foundations for language and numeracy learning.
  • On the contrary, the NCF has merely argued for appropriate pedagogical practices to be followed for children in the three to eight-year age group, for example, a focus on play-based learning, flexible pace of learning.
• Need to Target the Development of Whole Range of Literacy
  • The foundational stage described in the NEP and NCF does not intend to target the development of the whole range of literacy and numeracy skills, attitudes and knowledge required for all future learning in school by the end of Grade 2.
  • Most research conducted across the world and especially in Indian contexts show that these understandings develop slowly during the first four or five years of schooling.
• Need to Broaden the Vision of Early Foundational Learning
  • The decision to restrict the NIPUN Bharat stems from inadequate understanding of what it means to establish strong foundations for early literacy and numeracy.
  • It is possible that literacy, for example, is being understood as the ability to blend letters to read words at a certain pace by a certain age.
  • Therefore, it becomes even more important to broaden our vision of early foundational learning to include a focus on the relevance of literacy to children’s lives, strong oral expression, deep, inferential comprehension, etc.
• Need to Increase the Scope of NIPUN Bharat to Grade 5: To strengthen early literacy and numeracy learning and broaden children’s vision in terms of educational aims and outcomes.

 Conclusion

• NIPUN Bharat, despite certain limitations, has begun to slowly improve the learnings of children in Grades 1-3 in several states.
• Therefore, rather than cutting back on such programmes, it is important to broaden our vision of early foundational learning to include a focus on the relevance of literacy to children’s lives.