Around 478 grade-3 students of 62 schools from all the 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir Wednesday participated in a 3-day countrywide Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) survey initiated by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi.The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), J&K, has been tasked with the survey which is aimed at assessing the students primarily to gauge their communication and numeracy skills. “Under NIPUN Bharat Mission, the Ministry of School Education & Literacy, Government of India, mandates that every grade-3 child has attained foundational literacy and numeracy by 2026-27,” Director SCERT, Prof Veena Pandita said. “Foundational learning comprises integrated and holistic development of a child that ensures children maintained good health and wellbeing besides learning effective communicative skills.”Joint Director, SCERT, Shams-ud-din Bhat, while underlining the importance of holding the survey said the government has initiated multiple interventions for achieving the objective of NIPUN Bharat Mission.“These include NIPUN Bharat’s prospective plan spanning five years for contextualization of material, adaptation of Vidya Pravesh module,” Bhat said. “Capacity building of all the stakeholders, preparation of supplementary material for FLN, training of Zonal Education Officers (ZEO), Head of the Institutions (HoI), Resource Persons (RP) and Teachers are some important areas being looked after.” In a run-up to the survey, the Educational Research Survey and Assessment (ERSA) Wing of the SCERT had conducted a four-day orientation program comprising a dry run. Giving details of the survey, Academic Officer, G H Reshi, who is also the coordinator for FLN, NAS, said the SCERT had developed multiple items on areas like phonological awareness, decoding, reading and comprehension, numbers and operation, measurement, patterns and data handling.“The students participating in the survey are being assessed for these skills only so as to have a clearer picture of their understanding of the immediate environment they are interacting with,” Reshi said.The study, Reshi said, is being conducted in 112 Schools of J&K UT including private schools, Jawahar Nav Vidyalayas, Kendriya Vidyalayas.According to the Ministry of Education sources, the FLN is the first of its kind in the world that aims to set up benchmarks for reading with comprehension in Indian languages.
