'National mission on foundational learning the need of the hour in education sector'

Learning crisis. That is what happens when children between the ages of three and eight are not able to cope with what schools across the country teach them in classes 1, 2 and 3. Class 3 is the cut-off point where children move from learning to read, to reading to learn. Children who fall behind, stay behind.

The Central Square Foundation, a non-profit organisation aiming to transform school educaiton system, welcomed the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 that highlights the need to invest in quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). The draft policy identifies foundational literacy and numeracy—the ability to read, write and perform basic operations with numbers—as necessary prerequisites for all future school and learning.

The NEP says that early childhood education can ensure that children are “school ready”, and so can benefit from schooling among other things. It has set a target of ensuring that all children in the age group of three to six have access to high quality ECCE by 2025.

“We believe it is doable within that time frame,” said Ashish Dhawan, founder chairman of the CSF, but did not agree with the NEP on anganwadis being able to deliver school readiness skills to children in this age group. He, however, lamented that the policy “stops short of providing an overarching policy approach and pathway for achieving this goal”.

CSF spelt out that a universal foundational learning on a mission mode would require, among other things, clear and well-defined metrics that can measure competencies and success at every stage, effective class room practices, addressing the system-binding constraints and clear accountability and independent monitoring.

Giving an example, Dhawan spoke about Peru's early learning, and the emphasis on reading fluency. Every teacher who taught children in that age group knew that the students had to clearly read 40 words a minute in class 2, and 60 words a minute in class 3. “The goals should be simple and effective as opposed to a long laundry list,” he said, and commented that, as of now, the curriculum for children in these grades in India were way too difficult for them. The big mismatch between the curriculum and the students' ability results in them not learning.

The ECCE, according to CSF, needs at least one year of quality pre school education and dedicated teachers for grades 1 and 2 if students' performance is to improve.

The non-profit organisation did not think money would be a major constraint, but universal foundational learning has to become a matter of priority. “Like Swachch Bharat Abhiyan acted like a steroid for the sanitation space, a national mission on foundational learning, state governments getting involved, and independent assessment to ensure reliability of data are what we need,” said Dhawan.