Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN)

The Context

With the near universalisation of elementary education in India, the focus has increasingly shifted from access to quality of teaching and learning. Yet year after year, every study shows serious gaps between what children actually learn and what they are supposed to have achieved in each grade. This gap is consistently more evident for children from marginalised communities. Even 22 years after the Right to Education Act, the system is not able to give children from the weakest sections of society their right to basic literacy and numeracy skills in the crucial early school years. The Covid pandemic has complicated and worsened the situation in multiple ways. Children often reach middle school still unable to read with understanding, write independently, and do simple mathematical operations. This impacts all further learning, resulting in an alarming level of drop-outs.

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The NEP 2020 squarely addresses this problem and sets forth an Action Plan to solve it. While these guidelines are for the most part theoretically sound, bringing them into practice requires a large-scale effort on the part of teacher educators, teachers, and the administrative machinery. Programmes for achieving good learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy need a major reorientation of the entire pedagogy of early literacy and mathematics, a revamping of evaluation systems, and attention to enhancing the motivation of teachers.

It is here that CLR can contribute, through technical support to government systems, rooted in knowledge gained from our continuous engagement with national and global research, as well as actual experience in the field for almost 4 decades.

We partner with state and district-level government agencies and like-minded NGOs and institutions, to provide technical support of high quality towards teacher capacity building and locally relevant teaching-learning materials

What CLR Offers

CLR offers technical support to school-based as well as out-of-school programmes as follows:

Ongoing professional development of teacher trainers, resource persons, teachers and NGO support teachers, integrating a theoretical understanding of FLN with practical skills and approaches to teaching, reviewing and assessing learner progress, within the framework of state curriculum and evaluation policies
Provision of supporting materials for teachers, like manuals, print modules, assessment cards
Provision of a School Readiness package to be used in pre-primary schools, or for school entrants in Class 1
Provision of appropriate and relevant teaching learning materials in language and mathematics, including materials and guidance for creating a supportive school environment for FLN
Guidance in developing teacher-prepared materials relating to children’s immediate socio-cultural and natural environment
Training for Mentoring support for teachers
Monitoring and assessment of processes and outcomes
Strategies for involvement of parents and local communities through School Management Committees, Panchayats and other local bodies
Perspective building of administrative cadres towards effective implementation

Recognising and addressing teacher attitudes and perceptions and building understanding and empathy towards the needs of first generation school-goers is part of our approach

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EXAMPLES OF CLR PROJECTS AND CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMMES FOR FLN

Curriculum Development and Teacher Training for Government Schools in Nandurbar District, Maharashtra

One of the most challenging aspects of working towards improving the quality of education for children from marginalised communities is changing attitudes of teachers and prevailing pedagogy. Usually with high formal qualifications, most teachers have a great deal…

Community-Based Support Classes for Vulnerable School Children in Pune District

Students from educated backgrounds receive a great deal of support from their families, both in terms of a literate environment as well as direct support for homework, preparing for tests and so on. But first-generation school-goers often do not get this support…

Bridging the Gap Between Home and School for Adivasi Children

As more and more children from tribal communities enrol in school, more complex and urgent issues confront teachers. One of the most daunting of these is helping Adivasi children adjust to the completely alien culture of school, which has its own language…