NIPUN Bharat Mission stands for “National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy” (NIPUN Bharat). It is a national mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN).
FLN refers to a child’s ability to read meaningfully and solve basic mathematics problems by Class 3. These are critical foundational skills that help them succeed in life.
FLN has been given the highest priority in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. #NIPUNBharat is a national mission on FLN launched by the Ministry of Education, aiming to ensure that every child achieves these basic skills by Class 3 by 2026-27.
The NIPUN Bharat program was launched on July 5, 2021.
The NIPUN Bharat Mission was launched to educate children because:
- 55% of school-going children in India cannot read and understand a short, age-appropriate text by Class 5: World Bank’s Learning Poverty Index.
- 13–18% of students in Classes 3, 5, and 8 are below basic learning levels, and only 39–53% have achieved proficiency: NAS 2017.
- Research shows that Class 3 is an inflection point. If children “learn to read” by then, only then can they “read to learn.”
- #NIPUNBharat will teach children to “read to learn” so that they do not lag behind.
Key Initiatives in Line with the Recommendations of #NEP2020:
- Helping children read with understanding.
- Helping children understand numbers, measurements, and shapes.
- Utilizing play- and activity-based pedagogy.
- Teaching children in their home languages/mother tongues.
- Providing high-quality teaching-learning materials (TLM) to engage children.
- Building the capacity of teachers, academic resource persons, and education administrators.
- Continuously tracking children’s learning levels.
- Conducting meaningful assessments using polls, quizzes, games, etc.
Key Components of the NIPUN Bharat Mission:
- Oral Language Development: Helps build phonological awareness, which is critical when learning to read and write.
- Decoding: Includes print awareness, letter knowledge, and word recognition competencies.
- Reading Fluency with Comprehension: Reading text accurately with meaning, understanding expressions, and punctuation marks.
- Writing: Writing alphabets and words with proper expression.
- Understanding Foundational Numeracy:
- Foundational numeracy means the ability to reason and apply simple numerical concepts to solve daily life problems.
- Pre-number Concepts: Being able to count and understand the numerical system.
- Numbers and Operations on Numbers: Learning the fundamentals of mathematics, such as the Base-10 system to represent numbers.
- Shapes and Spatial Understanding: Performing simple calculations with three-digit numbers and applying them to daily life activities.
- Measurement: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division involving numbers up to three digits.
