Educated mothers of young kids can help strengthen their learning journey

Educated mothers of young kids can help strengthen their learning journey

Subject: Schemes

Sec: Education

Context:

The new National Education Policy (NEP 2020) was launched on July 29, four years ago. One of NEP 2020’s key recommendations was to ensure that by the time children reach Grade 3, they have acquired foundational literacy and numeracy skills.

More on News:

• The Centre launched the NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission on July 5, 2021.
• The mission has seen energetic implementation in many states, with a new framework for the foundational stage of education developed and released well before frameworks for other stages.
• This framework includes teacher training oriented towards the new goals, specially designed teaching-learning materials for use by children and teachers in early grade classrooms, etc.

Two demographic trends

• School enrollment levels (between ages 6-14) have shown a remarkable rise in the last few decades. With the launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in 2001, school enrollment levels reached well above 90% in rural India by the early 2000s.
• The data on education levels of mothers with children between ages 4 and 8 — the target age of the NIPUN mission — show a steep rise over the last decade.
• In states like Uttarakhand, Maharastra, Punjab, and Haryana, 30-40% of mothers of young children have had schooling beyond Grade 10.
• In Tamil Nadu this figure is close to 43%, while in Himachal, it is higher than 54%. Kerala tops this list with almost 72% of these mothers receiving high school education.
• Due to the push towards universal elementary education, India today is in a unique position to leverage young mothers’ schooling levels as a resource in their children’s journey to acquire foundational literacy and numeracy.

NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission:

• Aims to cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.
• Part of NEP 2020:
  • This initiative is being launched as a part of NEP (National Education Policy) 2020.
  • This policy aims to pave the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems in the country. This policy replaced the 34-year-old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986.
• 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 three existing schemes: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
    • The aim of the scheme isto treat school education holistically, from pre-school to Class XII.
  • A special package for foundational literacy and Numeracy (FLN) under NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement) is being developed by NCERT.
    • Around 25 lakh teachers teaching at pre-primary to primary grade will be trained this year on FLN.
    • NISHTHA is a capacity building programme for “Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training”.
  • Stage-wise targets are being set in a continuum from the pre-primary or balvatika classes.