Context:

The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education has launched National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat).

About the NIPUN Bharat Mission

• It is among the series of measures taken for implementation of the National Education Policy 2020.
• The vision of the NIPUN Bharat Mission is to create an enabling environment to ensure the universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27.
• NIPUN Bharat will be implemented by the Department of School Education and Literacy.  A five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at the National- State- District- Block- School level in all States and UTs, under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of SamagraShiksha.

SamagraShiksha Scheme

• It is a centrally sponsored scheme.
• Implementing agency: Department of School Education and Literacy.
• It is a sector-wide development program to help to harmonize the implementation mechanisms and transaction costs at all levels, particularly in using state, district, and sub-district level systems.
• The Integrated Scheme envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels.
• The vision of the Scheme is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education from preschool to senior secondary stage following the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for Education.

The major objectives of the Scheme are:

• provision of quality education and enhancing learning outcomes of students
• Bridging Social and Gender Gaps in School Education.
• Ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education
• Ensuring minimum standards in schooling provisions
• Promoting Vocationalisation of education
• Support States in the implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009
• Strengthening and up-gradation of State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs)/State Institutes of Education (SIE) and District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) as nodal agencies for teacher training.