Vast majority of children in primary grades need urgent support: Rajnath Singh

The Defense Minister added that the traditional methods have grossly failed to develop the foundational skills even after five years of schooling.

Defence Minister of India, Rajnath Singh has said that the children in Grade 3 today have not seen school till recently. Children in Grade 5 lost most of what they learned in Grade 3 before the COVID. “Thus, the vast majority of children in the primary grades need urgent support,” Singh said.

Rajnath Singh speaking at the two-day Synergy Summit- A Paradigm Shift in FLN: Making India Literate in Months, not Years in New Delhi said, “It was high time to bring all the stakeholders to the same table to explore transformative solutions to the mammoth crises of foundational literacy and numeracy. Without strategic thinking, and without highly disruptive solutions, the literacy crises will continue to deepen. The children in Grade 3 today have not seen school till recently. Children in Grade 5 lost most of what they learned in Grade 3 before the COVID. Thus, the vast majority of children in the primary grades need urgent support. We cannot leave it to the teachers alone to solve this major crisis. Entire communities need to be mobilized and all segments of society have to work in synergy. FLN needs to be treated as an emergency, and we need all hands on deck”.

He added that the traditional methods have grossly failed to develop the foundational skills even after five years of schooling.

COVID has wiped out years of gain in education. As per UNICEF, over 70% of the 10-year-olds post-COVID school closures do not have the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) skills. Against this backdrop, the theme of the Synergy Summit, A Paradigm Shift in FLN: Making India Literate in Months, not Years, is a call to urgent action.

The two-day Synergy Summit brought together, for the first time, and in one place, the heads of several major CSR, NGOs, Embassies, Schools, Universities and the Government to jointly solve India’s biggest education crises.

He praised the FLN ground-breaking efforts of Dr Sunita Gandhi, Former Economist, The World Bank, and Founder, DEVI Sansthan for coming up with the new Global Dream ALfA or Accelerating Learning for All methodology. He said, “India needs highly disruptive solutions such as ALfA Global Dream to bridge the learning gap within 90 days. The traditional methods have grossly failed to develop the foundational skills even after five years of schooling. I am pleased that ALfA is now being implemented in two of the ten Lowest Performing Districts of India: Shamli in Uttar Pradesh and Sambalpur in Orissa. ALfA education needs to be urgently given to every child, just like the COVID vaccination."

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