According to numerous governmental and non-governmental surveys, many elementary school students (consisting of more than five crore children) have not yet attained the foundational literacy and numeracy skills they should have by that age. This means that most children in class three cannot still comprehend basic concepts, read at the required level, or even perform basic addition and subtraction.
They are thus already falling behind due to a lack of foundational knowledge required for concepts tackled in middle and higher secondary schooling. The New Education Policy (NEP) recognises this as an urgent crisis that needs attention immediately. The solutions suggested mainly fall under two categories: 1. Revamping the curriculum and modes of education and 2. Ensuring access to quality education
Revamping the curriculum and modes of education:
The NEP proposes an elementary curriculum focusing on reading, writing, speaking, counting, arithmetic, and mathematical thinking. It also suggests adding specific hours dedicated to activities that increase the above capabilities and integrating them into the year-long syllabus.
It has been recognised that children are falling behind in grade 1 due to a lack of early childhood education. Thus the NEP proposes a 3-month ‘play-based’ preparatory module for children of class 1 where hands-on activities focused on shape, colour, numbers, and letters will be introduced to get them up to par. It directs NCERT and SCERTs to prepare such a module.
Another scheme put forth by the NEP is Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA). Building a repository of high-quality resources on foundational literacy and numeracy on DIKSHA will help teachers tap into them when required to ensure quality education for their students.
To spread the joy of reading and increase language comprehension, the NEP proposes enjoyable books be accessible to all grade levels. School or village libraries maintain reading material and activities to entice and inspire young learners.
Ensuring Access To Quality Education
Building the curriculum and resources is one thing, but it will only help the masses if it’s truly accessible. Thus the NEP proposes many methods to ensure they reach every child while personalising their learning experience to ensure lasting impact.
One solution is training teachers and providing them with the resources required to carry out the activities and curriculum changes mentioned above. They also need to be trained to access digital resources. Only when teachers are equipped with these tools will they be able to pass them on to children.
Another way is ensuring the pupil-to-teacher ratio is maintained between 30–1 and 25–1 so that equal time and attention is given to all children and teachers can focus on individual learning.
Another solution is to expand the modes of education to peer-to-peer learning. According to the NEP, “Studies around the world show one-on-one peer tutoring to be extremely effective for learning not just for the learner, but also for the tutor. Thus, peer tutoring can be taken up as a voluntary and joyful activity for fellow students under the supervision of trained teachers and by taking due care of safety aspects. Additionally, it will also be made far easier for trained volunteers — from both the local community and beyond — to participate in this large-scale mission.”
Agastya’s Role
Agastya has always believed that hands-on learning is more effective than rote learning and thus has many prepared modules and curriculums to aid the process. Its mission aligns with the NEP to create a confident and creative learning population equipped to take on higher learning challenges. We have also been pioneering peer-to-peer teaching and learning through the Young Instructor Leaders program and training teachers to implement active learning through the Acharya Initiative or Teacher Training Program. Thus Agastya’s mission and vision concur with the NEP 2020, and we will continue to aid the process of spreading access to quality education to every child in India.
