NIPUN Bharat Mission:
The Ministry of Education has launched NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Scheme.
- It aims to cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 is to 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.
