Investing right and early: How early years in school determines academic excellence

As the world celebrates International Day of Literacy, India has as much to celebrate about as much to worry. We have reason to celebrate that 74 percent of the population is literate as compared to 12 percent at the time of independence. At the same time a staggering 358 million people are illiterate even today the majority among them from the most marginalized scheduled caste/scheduled tribe categories, and among them girls. For scheduled caste and scheduled tribe girls, the gender gap in education is almost 30 per cent at the primary level and 26 per cent at the upper primary level (DISE 2022). Similarly, in India’s aspirational districts, for example, the probability of girls getting primary education is about 42 per cent lower than boys, and it remains so even when other variables, such as religion and caste, are controlled. Acknowledging its deep stratified nature India launched flagship programs like ‘Education for All’ and brought in groundbreaking legislation including the Right to Education Act 2009. Even with this proactive approach it took a bold and creative policy (National Education Policy/NEP 2020) to recognize the fundamental nature of the early education years. If learning in the foundational years encompassing three years of preschool followed by two years of grade 1 and 2 is not done well, children fall behind, unable to ever catch up, even if supported by ‘remediation programmes’. The rest of NEP 2020 becomes relevant only if most basic learning requirement (i.e., reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level) is first achieved. It is worrisome that ‘the state of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in India’ is dismal. ASER and NAS data show poor literacy and numeracy skills across grades. The performance of children is not just low, it steadily declines over years. There also exist wide state variations with Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana clearly outperforming Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Poor quality FLN led to generations of children unable to become productive citizens of the economy and irreparable economic and social loss. NEP 2020 and the NIPUN Bharat guidelines are a tremendous promise to massively impact and turn around the learning levels of our children. Child’s language finds space in the classroom and is a huge enabler supporting transition via the three-month preparation module ‘Vidya Pravesh’. Curricular revisions based on scientific principles of learning, competency-based assessment, continuous teacher professional development and integration of technology bring in ‘scale with quality’ for maximum and timely gains for early learners. The author is Manager Education Programme and Policy Impact, Save the Children. Views are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.