By: Shahnawaz Dar
Not achieving basic foundational skills of being able to read with comprehension, writing and doing basic mathematics operations, leaves the child unprepared for the complexities of the curriculum beyond grade 3. Recognizing the importance of early learning, the National Education Policy 2020 states that “Our highest priority must be to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary schools by 2026-27. The rest of this Policy will be largely irrelevant for such a large portion of our students if this most basic learning (i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level) is not first achieved.”
To this end, a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy is being set up by the Ministry of Education (MoE) on priority. The Mission will focus on following areas– 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 of children.
The vision of the Mission is 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 at the end of Grade III.
The mission will cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years. Accordingly, learning gaps will be identified along with their probable reasons, and various strategies keeping in view local circumstance and diversity of country will be initiated. Moreover, with the aim to establish strong linkage and smooth transition between pre-school stage and Grade I, ECCE Curricular framework developed by NCERT will be followed by both Anganwadis and Pre-primary schools to ensure smooth transition to grade I. Hence, learning will be Holistic, Integrated, Inclusive, Enjoyable, and Engaging.
FLN Implementation
5 TIER IMPLEMENTATION
This will be implemented by MoE at National- State- District- Block- School level in all States and UTs. To lay emphasis and prioritise, the programme will be implemented in the mission mode.
The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education will be the implementing agency at the national level and will be headed by a Mission Director.
The programme will specifically focus on the targets to be achieved by the mission and States/UTs by preparing long term roadmaps and plan of actionThis comprehensive guideline for Implementation of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, covers key technical aspects of foundational literacy and numeracy as well as the 16 NIPUN BHARAT: National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy administrative aspects for effectively setting up an implementation mechanism at the National, State, District, Block and School level.
It has been developed through a series of intensive consultations with implementing partners and experts in the field. Adequate care has also been taken to make it flexible and collaborative. Thus, the National Mission on FLN will be implemented with the use and strengthening of the existing mainstream structures and will take a holistic approach through the active involvement of all stakeholders.
What Are FLN Skills?
Foundational Language & Literacy
Oral language development in home language; appropriate exposure to the school language including good listening comprehension skills, development of print and phonological awareness and development of emergent reading and writing skills in the pre-school years are crucial for language and literacy development in early primary school years.
Foundational Numeracy & Mathematical Skills
Foundational Numeracy means the ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts in daily life problem solving. The development of pre-number and number concepts, knowledge and skills ofcomparing, seriation, classification and recognizing patterns during pre-school.
<shahnawazdar802@gmail.com
