Govt unveils NIPUN to improve learning

Source: Livemint, The Hindu

 What is the News?

The Ministry of Education has launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy(NIPUN Bharat) Mission.

About NIPUN Bharat Mission:

• NIPUN Bharat Mission aims to improve foundational literacy and numeracy of children in the age group of three to nine years.

Key Features of the Mission:

• Implementation: The mission will be implemented by the Union Education Ministry in collaboration with states through the flagship school education program Samagra Shiksha.
• Target: The mission has set a target that by 2026-27, every Class 3 child should be able to read with understanding at the rate of at least 60 words per minute. Further, the child should be able to read and write numbers up to 9,999 and solve simple multiplication problems.
• Survey: A National Achievement Survey of Class 3 students will be conducted to set a baseline to track the future progress of the mission.
• Mother Tongue: The mission also emphasizes the importance of using a child’s mother tongue in teaching, a principle of the National Education Policy 2020.

What was the need for this mission?

• Foundational learning has been poor in Indian schools. Annual State of Educational Report (Aser) findings released by education non-profit Pratham have shown that for successive years.
• According to ASER findings, at least 25% of school children in the four-eight age group do not have age-appropriate cognitive and numeracy skills. It is leading to a massive learning deficit at an early stage.
• Just 37.4% of children below six were able to recognize at least letters, and only 25.6% could do additions.
• Similarly, only 34.8% of children in Class II could read a text meant for Class I. In Class III, only 50.8% could read texts meant for their juniors two levels below.