FOUNDATIONAL LITERACY AND NUMERACY

Problem Statement

The ministry of Education has promoted strengthening of early learning in pre-

primary and early grades in the past few years to build a strong foundation for
children for later years of schooling. However, education in these years is, often, not
given enough importance. Children do not learn the basic skills, abilities and
attitudes for reading, writing and numeracy at the end of this foundational stage, as
has been seen in the results of numerous achievement surveys conducted in the
country. The practices adopted both in the government as well as private pre-
schools were found to be developmentally inappropriate.

Existing ideas and solution :

 The Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat launched in 2014 by the HRD Minister of India,
Smriti Irani, regarded as a countrywide programme being implemented under
the umbrella of Sarva Shikshya Abhiyaan. The guidelines have emphasized the
importance of early learning, both early language and literacy, and early
mathematics.
 The few programme launched by several states like Reading Improvement
Programme (Assam), Early Grades Reading and Numeracy (Rajasthan,
Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand and West Bengal) have
implemented learning improvement programme targeting children in classes 1
and 2.
 Under the Right of children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009,
Department of Elementary Education has developed an early grade reading
approach that was experimented in Mathura in U.P.
 The National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Policy of the Ministry of
Women and Child Development lays down age-wise sub stages, with their age
appropriate needs and focus. Attention needs to be on protection from hazards,
health care, nutrition, social emotional and ethical learning with a structured
and planned readiness component for 5-6 year old.

I mentioned the some of existing solution which is implemented by the different

agencies of Government and Non-Governmental.

Key players at scale :

 The Child
 The Parents & Families
 Anganwadi Centre and Workers
 Local schools and school educators
 Local, State and Central Administration
 Non-governmental organizations
 Community Members
Overcoming challenges and mitigating strategy :

 Launching Integrated Child Development Scheme - The programme initiated in

the Vidisha district, under this scheme Fellows along with other Anganwadi
volunteers have to take baseline assessment of 100 Anganwadis, 50 of them will
be Demo Anganwadis and others 50 will be controlled Anganwadis, those are
near by Demo. After six months, final assessment will be conducted to identify
the gaps for further development of the Anganwadis all around the block to
improve holistic development of child under Early Child Development
Programme.
 Launching campaigns like Shaksham Bitiyan Abhiyaan, where volunteers of
respective blocks will be conducted classes and took assessment of participatory
children and try to enroll specially girl child in the school in their respective
community, villages and nearby schools. This can be bridge the gap between
education and joyful learning. In the Vidisha block, approx 250 children are
involved with 35 volunteers where they have advantage of joyful learning .
 In the previous point, we talked about enrollment of volunteers. Volunteerism is
powerful tool to run successful programs while executing proper plan.
Accelerated learning program which was run in the Vidisha District, where
volunteers with the help of Teachers took extra classes in order to mitigate the
learning challenges. Social, Emotional and Ethical learning programme which
was also initiated by the volunteer, apart from course study they were able to
learned general aspects of life. We can run these type of programme in several
time in the different districts of the country.
 Teachers and Educators need to be trained in the current education scenario,via
workshops and training (restructuring)
 Pedagogical Innovations - Building and evolving a differentiated pedagogy that
leads to effective teaching, joyful learning and educational transformation.
 On the curricular side, there will be an increased focus on foundational literacy
and numeracy and generally on reading, writing, speaking and mathematical
thinking.
 With the help of fund raising, we can setup libraries,improved infrastructure etc.
Like wise, The project Jugnu in Vidisha block help to established functional
library in 15 governmental schools with the help of Headmaster, Teachers, Block
official and social media.
 Proper Monthly analysis of performance of clusters, blocks and districts by
project management unit in order to mitigate the ground challenges which occur
by Schools, Teachers, Children and Community.

Outcome Metrics : We can map outcome by the help of different methods like
 Assessment ( focused on 20% Student learning Outcome)
 Monthly Report
 Number of Workshops and Training
 Skilled Educators and Educated Volunteers
 Number of campaign runs and outcome
 Annual Status of Education Report Survey