India’s Education Puzzle | High enrolment but low literacy, numeracy skills

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On September 7, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Vidyanjali 2.0 portal as part of the Shikshak Parv, underlining the “country's resolve of 'Sabka Prayas' with 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas'.”

About a year earlier, on September 11, 2020, Modi placed particular emphasis on oral reading fluency (ORF), perhaps the first time a Prime Minister stressed on the detail of one the most critical learning skills in primary education. He said that the goal should be to enable children to read 30-35 correct words per minute by Grade 3.

This was a formidable remark that needs to be commended for it defines the contours of an objective for teachers, educationists, policymakers, and civil society practitioners to work upon.

The Prime Minister’s latest observations with focus on educators need to be seen in the context of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) in the framework of the New Education Policy (NEP).

Two pieces of seemingly paradoxical statistics broadly demonstrate the challenges confronting Indian education. First, India’s primary education (Grades 1-5) enrolment rate is at 97 percent, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the very best in the world.

The second piece of data, however, mirrors a disturbing trend. An estimated number of 50 million students have not attained foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN), the ability to read and comprehend basic text, and the ability to carry out basic addition and subtraction. Various governmental, as well as non-governmental surveys, indicate that we are currently in a learning crisis, a situation that the NEP has flagged with emphasis.

The inability of students to read simple texts fluently and carry out basic mathematical problems by Grade 5 despite going through a structured curriculum for more than five years is a manifestation of an array of factors.

Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in their seminal book Poor Economics, make a pertinent point. “If the curriculum were radically simplified, if the teacher's mission were squarely defined as making everyone master every bit of it, and if children were allowed to learn at their own pace, by repeating if necessary, the vast majority of children would get something from the years they spend in school”.

Banerjee and Duflo, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, make a forceful argument that favours simplifying the curriculum, placing the onus also on the teachers through outcome-based goals that can be monitored, and letting children set their own pace of learning.

The NEP 2020 underscores a similar charter according the “highest priority to achieving FLN by all students by Grade 3.”

The NEP has set a rather steep goal of achieving universal FLN by 2025 with increased focus on “reading, writing, speaking, counting, arithmetic, and mathematical thinking -throughout the preparatory and middle school curriculum, with a robust system of continuous formative/adaptive assessment to track and thereby individualise and ensure each student's learning”.

The FLN mission, by its very definition and design, will be driven by the central government. The task will be to take the states along a centrally guided glidepath. A participatory Sabka Prayas approach, involving state governments, the private sector and the civil society, will, therefore, be essential to ensure that children come out of primary school armed with basic reading and mathematical skills.

Children who cannot read fluently and lack basic mathematical aptitude will find their schooling ineffective for the real world. Eliminating this problem is a natural and a national priority.

States, teachers, students, schools, the Centre, states, the private sector, the civil society, and parents, all have an equal part to play in building a pipeline of youth armed with the right skills.