At a glance
NIPUN Bharat – the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy – is India’s national mission on foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). It aims for every child to read with understanding, write, and do basic arithmetic by the end of the foundational stage.
Launched in 2021 under Samagra Shiksha, it is run nationally by the Department of School Education and Literacy, and by States and Union Territories through State, district, block, and school units. It sets year-wise learning targets, called Lakshyas, from Balvatika to Grade 2.
Objectives
Core objectives of NIPUN Bharat
The Ministry of Education sets out eight objectives for the mission.
Inclusive, activity-based classrooms
Create an inclusive classroom through play, discovery, and activity-based teaching that links learning to children’s daily lives and formally includes their home languages.
Readers and writers who understand
Help children become motivated, independent, and engaged readers and writers with comprehension, who keep their reading and writing skills.
Reasoning with numbers and shapes
Help children understand reasoning in number, measurement, and shapes, and solve problems independently using numeracy and spatial skills.
Teaching and learning materials
Make high-quality, culturally responsive teaching and learning materials available and well used, in children’s home language or mother tongue.
Building capacity
Build the capacity of teachers, head teachers, academic resource persons, and education administrators on a continuous basis.
Working with all stakeholders
Engage actively with teachers, parents, students, communities, and policy makers to build a foundation for lifelong learning.
Assessment as, and for learning
Assess learning through portfolios, group and collaborative work, quizzes, role plays, games, and oral presentations.
Tracking every child’s learning
Track the learning levels of all students.
Source: Ministry of Education and the Press Information Bureau (5 July 2021).
