NIPUN Bharat Mission

Context: The NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission is a key component of the National Education Policy 2020, aiming to ensure children acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills. Family engagement, alongside school efforts, can significantly enhance the mission’s success.

Implementation

  • The Department of School Education and Literacy will oversee the mission’s implementation.
  • A five-tier implementation mechanism will be established at the National, State, District, Block, and School levels across all States and UTs under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.
  • NCERT is developing a special Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) package under NISHTHA.
    • NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement) is the world’s largest teacher training program focused on capacity building.
  • The mission’s targets span different educational stages, starting from pre-primary classes.
  • It aims to ensure proficiency in reading, understanding, and numeracy for children aged 3 to 9 years.
  • The mission will be implemented across all types of schools to achieve universal FLN by 2026-27.

Leveraging Educated Mothers

  • The pandemic has increased parental involvement in education, particularly among mothers, due to:
    • Higher availability compared to fathers in rural India (65.5% of young men work, making them less available).
    • A lower labor force participation rate for women aged 15-29 (24.5% overall – 25.8% in rural areas, 20.8% in urban areas).

Demographic Trends

  • Increased Number of Educated Mothers: School enrollment has surged to over 90% in rural India since the launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in 2001.
  • Rising Education Levels:
    • The proportion of educated mothers beyond Grade 5 has jumped to nearly 60% by 2022.
    • Mothers with 10+ years of schooling increased from less than 10% in 2010 to over 20% in 2022.
    • In 2022, 30-40% of mothers in states like Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana had schooling beyond Grade 10.
    • In Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh, nearly 50% of mothers had schooling beyond Grade 10.
    • In Kerala, approximately 72% of mothers received high school education.

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