Foundational Learning Study: Basic skills poor in Hindi, but poorer in regional languages: NCERT

Source: The post is based on the article “Basic skills poor in Hindi, but poorer in regional languages: NCERT” published in The Hindu on 10th September 2022.

What is the News?

The Ministry of Education and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has released a Foundational Learning Study(FLS) 2022.

What is the Foundational Learning Study(FLS) 2022?

FLS is a national report on benchmarking for oral reading fluency with reading comprehension and fluency. 

Aim: To provide reliable and valid data about Grade 3 students to know what they are able to do in foundational literacy and numeracy and the extent of the learning outcomes achieved.

Samples Size: FLS was carried out among 86,000 class 3 children in 10,000 schools in the country.

Categorization: The survey divides learners on the basis of their knowledge and skills into four categories — those who “lack” them have “limited” proficiency, “sufficient” competency and those who are “superior”.

What are the key findings of the study?

Languages: Foundational learning of students in Hindi is poor but their performance in regional languages in some States was even worse.

– Around 53% of class 3 students in 18 States surveyed for Hindi proficiency either lacked or had limited knowledge and skills in reading and comprehending the language. 

– But proficiency in regional languages such as Kannada, which was analyzed in States such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala was poorer with 59% students either lacking or displaying limited skills.

Skills in Mathematics: Most basic knowledge and skills in numeracy were either lacking or limited in 48% of Class 3 students.

– As many as 11% of students couldn’t complete the most basic grade-level tasks in numeracy and 37% of learners could only partially complete basic grade-level tasks.  

– Among the States, Tamil Nadu was the worst performer with 77% of students either lacking or possessing only limited numeracy skills. 

– In all, there were 11 States with more than 50% of students who either lacked or had limited skills with numbers.

What is the significance of this study?

This study will help the government determine benchmarks in 20 languages and numeracy. 

Note: Government has launched NIPUN as a national mission to enable all children at the end of class 3 to attain foundational skills by the year 2026-2027 and these benchmarks will provide a baseline for subsequent surveys.