National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Study report

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Background-

• The Ministry of Education launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) Bharat in July 2021 as a national mission to enable all children at the end of Class III to attain foundational skills by the year 2026-2027. 
• As a step towards strengthening efforts for foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), a large-scale foundational learning study (FLS) has been undertaken jointly by the ministry and NCERT in March 2022. 
• The FLS is a national report on benchmarking for oral reading fluency with reading comprehension and fluency. 
• The aim of the study was to provide reliable and valid data about Grade 3 students to know what they are able to do in foundational literacy and numeracy and the extent of the learning outcomes achieved.

Key findings-

• According to an NCERT study, Tamil Nadu has the highest number of students lacking the most basic numeracy skills followed by Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, and Gujarat. 
• Such students, as a result, generally cannot complete the most basic grade-level tasks like the identification of numbers, addition, and subtraction. 
• On the other hand, states like West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar have the highest number of students who have either sufficient knowledge and skill, or have developed superior knowledge and skill and can complete complex grade-level tasks.
• Overall, at least 11 percent of learners lack the most basic numeracy skills while 37 per cent are in the category that says “learners have limited knowledge and skills and they can partially complete basic grade-level tasks”.
• The data was revealed in the national report on benchmarking for ‘oral reading fluency with reading comprehension and numeracy 2022’. 

• Around 10,000 state government schools, government-aided schools, private recognised and central government schools were covered in the large scale foundational learning study. 
• It was conducted in 20 languages which are being used as a medium of instruction in various state/UTs.
• The study is quite unique as it is first time in the entire world that oral reading fluency with comprehension and numeracy benchmarks based on Global Proficiency Framework are set for 20 languages with the largest sample ever for one-on-one basis assessment. 
• The study also highlighted that in eight languages more than a quarter of the children of Class 3 assessed for oral reading frequently performed below global minimum proficiency.
• The test included number identification, number discrimination, addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, fractions, and identifying patterns comprising numbers and shapes.

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