As India embarks on its transformative journey towards Viksit Bharat by 2047, it is time for the government to urgently focus its energies on primary education—one of the key pillars that determines a nation’s development. After two long years of pandemic-related school closures, we have finally gained enough ground after the losses of the covid years. The time is ripe now for us to look forward to a full and productive year of schooling and learning.
There are three key transition points in any primary school system. First is the entry into formal schooling in Std 1. Second is the movement of children from Std 2 to Std 3 (in the terminology of the new National Education Policy, or NEP, this would be the end of the “foundational stage”). Third is the transition from primary school to middle school (moving from Std 5 to Std 6). Looking closely at each of these transition points allows us to assess how far we have come and set expectations for what can be achieved in the upcoming school year and in the future.
For a long time to come, 2020 will be remembered as the year that covid hit the world. But in India, we will hopefully also look back and remember that the new National Education Policy was launched in that year. NEP 2020 brought with it clear targets, tasks and timelines, especially as far as young children’s education was concerned.
The new policy declared that the age range of 3 to 8 will be considered as the “foundation stage”. Early children’s education and the first two years of primary school must be seen as a continuum. NEP 2020 also lays out clear objectives—every student will attain foundational literacy and numeracy by Std 3. The document stresses that this is “an urgent national mission” and goes on to state that “the rest of this policy will become relevant for our students only if this most basic learning requirement (reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level) is first achieved.”
Translating policy into practice began energetically soon after the new policy was launched. For the early grades in formal school, the NIPUN Bharat (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) mission was announced. Curriculum framework and instructional modules were developed, and the delivery of teacher-training programmes and distribution of materials got underway. Even as early as September-October of 2022, a majority of government primary school teachers had already been trained (as per the Annual Status of Education Report of 2022). The momentum for transforming instructional practices in early grades must be kept up as we move into the new school year.
Two key elements need to be firmly in place for helping children achieve the NIPUN goals by Std 3. First, teachers and classrooms need ongoing onsite academic support. Live demonstrations, discussions and problem-solving are needed by mentors from within the government school system to help teachers improve teaching-learning practices. Second, simple, easy-to-generate and easy-to-understand data is needed at the classroom and school level to track children’s progress in foundational skills through the year and across years.
NIPUN goals can be achieved, but, for that, instructional practices and cohort experiences must improve year on year. In 2024-25, we should begin to see the impact of the investments made in the past two years. As we welcome children into Std 3 in July, we must have a good understanding of how these children are different from the previous year’s cohort, and a realistic but ambitious plan of how far we can take them by the end of the school year.
What about school readiness and entry into Std 1? The provision of early childhood education varies substantially across and within states in India.
In some states, anganwadi coverage is high starting at age 3 and remains high till well after age 5. In others, private pre-schools dominate even in rural areas. In still others, government primary schools have included pre-primary grades. Based on available resources and emerging priorities, some state governments have begun to strengthen early childhood education (ECE) training within the anganwadi structure. Others are busy improving the in-school pre-primary structure and teaching-learning processes. Regardless of how the institutional delivery is done, efforts to systematically bring in the 3-6 age group into the continuum must continue.
It is worth noting that across the board, there has been a universal push to standardize age of entry into Std 1. Children coming into the formal system before age 6 can be a disadvantage. Children must be “ready”—cognitively, socially and emotionally to cope with what is required of them in the early grades of primary school.
The early childhood years have also seen interesting innovations in the last two years. In particular, school systems in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have been actively encouraging young parents, especially mothers, to participate in their children’s learning journeys.
Holistic and “continuum” report cards in government schools are helping families understand that building strong foundations is not only about numeracy and literacy; children’s development requires a breadth of skills that includes cognitive growth, socio-emotional resilience and a variety of physical and motor skills. Such innovations must be encouraged. Families and communities can bring in much needed support for ensuring that young children get a strong start.
Finally, a few words about the third transition—children moving from Std 5 into middle school in Std 6. It is worth remembering that the cohort of children who will attend Std 6 in July 2024 have only had three years of primary schooling and not five. These children were in Std 1 before the pandemic arrived. When schools reopened in 2022, they were of the age to be in Std 4.
While curricular expectations in classes 5 and 6 are high, we must ensure that no child enters middle school without acquiring basic reading and comprehension skills and without with strong number knowledge and mastery of basic arithmetic operations. Tried and tested instructional approaches like ‘teaching at the right level’ are available for helping children “catch up”.
For the 2024-25 school year, the highest priority must be to continue the momentum on building strong foundations from the early years all the way to the end of primary school. NEP 2020 points out that building basic foundational literacy and numeracy for primary school children are essential and urgent national priorities. As citizens, it is up to all of us, to ensure that policy becomes practice and that each cohort of children going through the primary school system comes out stronger and certain to go further than previous cohorts.
Rukmini Banerji is chief executive officer at Pratham Education Foundation.
