It’s primary education, stupid: India needs a national Mission to redress its foundational learning crisis

In 2000, when the government of India launched the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, almost one in five children in the country wasn’t enrolled in primary school. Less than two decades later, close to 98% are enrolled in school. Unfortunately, this single minded goal of providing access to schooling has not resulted in learning.

The Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) tells us that less than half of students in class 5 are able to read class 2 text and the government’s NAS data reiterates that. With this background, it is heartening to read a draft national education policy that not only acknowledges India’s learning crisis but also identifies foundational learning as the most critical gap and suggests reforms in the sector as a whole.

As the draft mentions, most interventions and initiatives will eventually become irrelevant if the most basic learning – reading, writing and arithmetic at the foundational level – is not achieved first. According to ASER 2018, only 27.2% of class 3 students could read a simple class 2-level text and only 28.1% could do basic subtraction. While the total expenditure by government in elementary education has risen from Rs 80,000 crore to Rs 2.26 lakh crore between 2008-09 and 2014-15, the learning outcomes or percentage of students in class 5 who can read class 2-level text in government schools has declined.

Those who do not acquire foundational learning skills are unable to catch up later and eventually drop out of school. We are staring at a national crisis, to say the least. To deal with this, we need something that is over and above a national policy. We now need a Mission that will spell out the measures and design the pathways of transforming foundational learning in our schools.

Much like the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that revolutionised society’s mindset, foundational learning needs an immediate and nationwide Mission with a holistic approach; one that will achieve clear and aligned outcomes of improved literacy and numeracy skills of all students going to primary school, and also focus on finding solutions and develop cost effective and technology driven interventions.

Working on a mission mode would enable the government and other agencies to formulate a time-bound national strategy for universal learning while giving autonomy to the states and local bodies to create their own plan within a broad framework. It will mean merging pedagogical inputs from educationists with key policy reforms and having independent bodies to monitor performance and strengthen the system at all levels.

Reliable, measurable and comparable data will have to be made available to all the actors of the Mission on a regular basis to create an environment where there’s both an urgency towards achieving the critical goals by 2025 and providing incentives for improvement at all levels. The Mission will set well-defined and quantifiable targets that can be comprehended and adopted by all the stakeholders – from the decision makers in the ministry to teachers, school administrators, parents/ guardians and NGOs.

However, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work for a country as diverse as India. The Union government should provide technical and financial assistance to states while assuring a flexibility and autonomy that will allow the creation of state-specific missions. For the states, it is important to scrap the annual planning cycles and instead have road maps spanning three to five years to achieve reform and delivery goals. Comprehensive data, put together by independent organisations, will help both the Centre and states identify the gaps that need to be addressed and customise solutions. Monitoring will also ensure that there’s no misalignment between policies, goals, budget and key players (teachers, students, school administration, parents).

As a critical step towards a Foundation Learning Mission, the government needs to bring together all stakeholders to identify why previous efforts have failed and how to find the solutions that support schools and teachers in improving learning experiences of the students. But what is of paramount importance is political will, community participation and a nationwide mobilisation prioritising foundational learning. Enrolment figures, syllabus completion and pass percentages have long held our classrooms hostage. The new government can change this by giving a fresh and innovative direction to education at the foundational stage.