Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) refers to basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. It is the ability to read and understand a basic text write and perform simple mathematical operations. The key components in Foundational Language and Literacy are Oral Language, Decoding, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension and Writing. On the other hand, Foundational Numeracy translates to the ability to reason and apply simple numerical concepts in daily life. The major components of foundational numeracy include Pre-number concepts, Numbers and operations on numbers, Shapes and Spatial Understanding, Measurement and Data Handling.

Ensuring strong foundations in literacy and numeracy is vital for every child in school and throughout life. These foundation skills are the most reliable predictor of longer-term educational outcomes and personal and economic wellbeing. Thus, Targets 4.1 and 4.2 of Sustainable development goals state: "By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys must have access to quality early childhood development, care, and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education and also complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.”

Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) has been an important concern across the world and especially in India. As per a report by UNICEF “on average 40 per cent of children across all OECD and EU countries do not have basic reading and mathematics skills by age 15” (UNICEF, 2020). It is surprising that even though the number ofschool-going children has been increasing steadily year after year the learning of foundational skills are not showing the same increase. The National Policy on Education (NEP, 2020) recognizes that the ability to read, write and perform basic operations with numbers is a necessary foundation and an indispensable prerequisite for all future schooling and lifelong learning. The policy highlights that the country presently is facing a learning crisis and about 50 million children have not attained foundational literacy and numeracy. Highlighting the importance of foundational literacy and numeracy the policy reiterates that the rest of the policy will become irrelevant for students if the basic learning requirements (i.e., reading, writing and arithmetic) at the foundational level is not achieved by the students.

In order to provide a strong base of FLN, the policy suggested a restructured school pedagogy of 5+3+3+4. The first five years from 3 years of preschool + Grade I and II (ages 3 to 8 years) are referred as foundational stage in the policy, which will be a part of the school education system. The policy highlighted that the FLN in primary schools should be achieved by 2025 and recommended that a National Mission on FLN should be set up by the Ministry of Education on priority. The Ministry of Education, Government of India, launched the National Mission on FLN called National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN) Bharat Mission. It emphasizes the need to attain FLN goals nationally in a time-bound (2026-27) manner. NIPUN lays down priorities and actionable agenda for states and UTs to achieve the goal of proficiency in FLN for every child in Foundational Stage. The mission aims to provide access and retention of children in the foundational years of schooling, teacher capacity building, development of high-quality and diversified student and teacher resources/ learning materials, and tracking the progress of each child in achieving the learning outcomes. As per the recommendations of NEP, 2020, A 3-month School Preparatory Module, Vidya Pravesh was also developed by NCERT for all the children starting Grade I. NISHTHA FLN was launched to train the teachers on different aspects of foundational learning through 12 modules. A large number of infographics, byte size videos, worksheets, assessment items were created and uploaded in DIKSHA for the use of different stakeholders.

The National Curricular Framework for Foundational Stage (NCF-FS) was launched on 20th October 2022. It includes engaging Teaching-Learning Material (TLM) both for teachers and students, Teacher capacity building programme, Assessment and pedagogical approaches to guide the nature of syllabus, textbooks and other resource material for teaching and learning in the country to be used at the foundational stage.

JaaduiPitara has been launched on 20th February, 2023 having an exemplar of content needed in any school for the Foundational Stage. It has toys, games, puzzles, puppets, posters, flashcards, story cards, playbooks for students, and handbooks for teachers.

10.1 Way Forward

All the states are implementing and striving to achieve the objectives of NIPUN Bharat Mission by developing learning teaching material, developing capacity of teachers, school heads and other stakeholders and monitoring and tracking children’s progress and providing mentoring and support to the teachers. The thematic session will allow for a space for conversation on such topics at a national level.

The Education Working Groups (EdWGs) under past G20 presidencies in host countries have focused on strengthening educational systems by making them more inclusive, accessible, and innovative. Themes including universal quality education, continuity of learning in times of crises, supporting teachers, use of technology for educational continuum and universal access, addressing challenges of digital divide, impact on early learners, and issues of cyber safety, have been discussed under the previous presidencies. India’s G20 EdWG Presidency, focuses on four priority areas, the first of which is “Ensuring Foundational Literacy and Numeracy especially in the context of Blended Learning”. Various issues discussed in these meetings included multilingualism in FLN, teacher’s capacity building, digital interventions, teaching learning methods, etc.

10.2 Expected Outcomes of the Session

• To learn and discuss the issues and challenges in implementing the NEP with respect to FLN.
• To understand facets of FLN in various areas like multilingualism, Teacher Capacity, Pedagogy etc.
• To discuss challenges of using digital initiatives for FLN.
• Learn about scalable best practices in FLN.