Centre plans to expand NIPUN mission to Class 5

New Delhi [India], May 7 : The Ministry of Education plans to extend the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) Bharat Mission, the main scheme promoting foundational literacy and numeracy, till Class 5, officials said.

Launched in July 2021, the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy is a mission to ensure all children attain foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) by Grade 3 by 2026-27.

It aims to achieve universal proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic for children aged 3-9 years.

"We have a proposal to extend the NIPUN Bharat Mission till Class 5. The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan Result 2024 put the literacy and numeracy figures at 60 per cent so we want to scale that up for children who may have missed out in junior classes, " said a senior official.

NIPUN Bharat Mission aims to create an enabling environment to ensure the universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27.

As per the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan Result 2024, Class 3 students recorded an 18 per cent jump in proficiency in language, while 23 per cent more students are proficient in mathematics as compared to the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021.

As per the Item Response Theory (IRT) scores, 57 per cent of the grade 3 students demonstrated proficiency or above in language, while 65% achieved similar levels in mathematics in PRS 2024, marking a substantial improvement from NAS 2021, where only 39 per cent were proficient in language and 42 per cent in mathematics.

Compared to NAS 2017, where proficiency levels were 47 percent in language and 53 percent in mathematics, the increase observed in PARAKH result highlights greater importance and indicates a complete recouping of Covid-induced learning losses at the foundational stage as far as proficiency is concerned.

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