One lakh Class 3 students across the country are participating in a foundational learning study this week, meant to set a baseline for the Centre’s mission to improve literacy and numeracy in the early school years. The study, being conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), aims to set the benchmarks for reading with comprehension in 22 Indian languages, the Education Ministry said on Thursday.
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About 10,000 schools and one lakh students are expected to take part in the study being conducted from March 23 to 26.
One of the major themes of the National Education Policy, 2020 was the understanding that “the ability to read and write, and perform basic operations with numbers, is a necessary foundation and an indispensable prerequisite for all future schooling and lifelong learning”. Non-governmental surveys, including the reputed Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), have shown that the majority of children in Class 3 in rural schools across the country do not have these basic skills.
Last year, the Education Ministry launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN-BHARAT) mission to ensure universal literacy and numeracy for Class 3 children within five years.
“The Foundational Learning study will enable to establish benchmarks in reading with comprehension in different Indian languages for children at Grade 3 level. It will assess the ability to read age-appropriate known as well as unknown text at a certain pace, accurately, and with comprehension and also the foundational numeracy skills and form a baseline for the NIPUN Bharat Goals,” said a Ministry statement.