Notes on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN), in the context of but not limited to its conception and implementation under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the curricular avatars in MCD and Delhi Govt schools.
This note on FLN has been prepared by Lok Shikshak Manch after rounds of discussions amongst ourselves and other scholars.
Howsoever it may be conceived in policy-related documents, it is clear that on ground FLN means and impacts both content/ curriculum (the 'what', and thereby objectives of education) as well as pedagogy (the 'how').
Interest of the Private/Business Forces
● The conception of FLN is drawn from the idea of Learning Outcomes, which in turn is umbilically linked to the business, industrial and market models.
● The FLN discourse is heavily influenced by international/multilateral bodies, both seemingly benign like those associated with the UN (and agendas like SDGs etc) and those working along with finance/capital promoting agencies like the WB.
● It is tied to the learning crisis narrative generated and pushed by private organisations - like Pratham (ASER reports), Central Square Foundation, Teach for India etc. - and supported by governments in compromising positions.
● This is an instrumentalist rather than a rights-based conception of education. It is reflected in overturning 'inputs' without having ensured them in practice and introducing 'outcomes' in the RTE Act. The RTE Rules were amended on 20th February 2017 ‘to include reference on class-wise, subject-wise Learning Outcomes.’ (PIB release) It begins by claiming, on a dangerously false basis, that the problem of access has been solved and is thus irrelevant now. Also, it diverts from the issue of lakhs of gravely underfunded and under-resourced schools and their communities.
● There is widespread, almost across-political party spectrum, support for this minimalist education policy. This is, for example, reflected in the prominent role given to Pratham by the Union Government as well as the GNCT-Delhi, in the making of their respective (but aligned) policies. Similarly, a Congress-affiliated Trust had awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for the year 2021 to the same organisation.
● It represents a business-industry-managerial, data-driven and market-oriented approach to education. Thus, the limiting and inhumane phenomenon of private production for profit and external control over alienated labour is falsely taken as providing a solution for 'problems in education' or even as an example for it.
● The 'learning outcomes' or the FLN agenda has got little to do with, in spite of its language and stated concerns with equity, Universal Human Rights and everything to do with standardising Global Labour Supply for transnational capital.
● The discourse has advanced in-tandem with the sidelining and subversion of public, academic bodies by privileging NGOs and other private sector, corporate affiliated organisations, even in policy-making and implementation framework.
The narrative of ‘Falling Standards’
● FLN and the measures associated with it today resonate with the earlier example of the USA's NCLB Act (2001) and the testing and accountability regimen put in the name of 'standards'; Minimum Levels of Learning document produced in 1991 by the NCERT under the mandate of the National Policy on Education 1986. These earlier avatars were not limited to the areas of language and mathematics and posited more noble concerns about 'falling standards' and 'equalising outcomes' across sections of students, but also included conceptions of accountability, performance goals, achieving functionality and social usefulness by the strange means of reducing curriculum/curricular goals etc. There is a shift though, as, whereas, the overt concern behind NCLB was with 'standards', the recent policies in our parts of the world have been framed in the backdrop of the narrative of 'learning crisis', and hence have been overtly minimalist instead of needing to hide behind the fig leaf of 'excellence'.
● FLN dilutes curriculum and educational standards. It reduces educational goals to outcomes and content to language and mathematics; thereafter, further reducing these two areas to the minimalist conceptions of literacy and numeracy.
● FLN fragments and vandalises the curriculum. It is in line with the larger policy of dumbing down, deskilling and de-intellectualisation. The sidelining of other curricular areas like music, games, social studies, EVS etc. (even while glamorising fragments of and exhibitionist performances in these) is in line with other curricular subversions and compromises like vocational training, happiness curriculum, deshbhakti curriculum, EMC etc. as carried out in the Delhi government (and, lately, in MCD) schools.
● Schools are being degraded to coaching/tuition centres; especially affecting those who need the most rigorous education, kids from working class and marginalised sections studying in public schools.
● The no-detention policy (NDP) under the RTE Act (but existent up to varying grades across states even prior to the Act) was seen by some vocal critics as having led to a dilution of 'learning levels'. The section was finally amended in January 2019, leaving it to the states' discretion whether to adopt it and to what level. The Rules of the Act had already been changed in 2017 to introduce the guarantee of 'learning outcomes'.
● We observe a lower emphasis on Maths across measures and programs associated with FLN - both, in documents and in practice.
● The FLN conception fits in with the reduction of education into schooling, schooling into learning, learning into (measurable) outcomes, and with the parallel reduction of Language, Mathematics and EVS into Language and Mathematics and further into Literacy and Numeracy.
● Under the influence of FLN, rigorous syllabus is seen as a disadvantage and threat.
● The FLN approach is based on and extenuates the compartmentalisation of knowledge and subject areas. It is then sure to push this fracture into the affective domain.
Destroying Pedagogy
● FLN compromises pedagogic principles. It is aligned with and tends to centralisation of management and administration of schools and classroom teaching, through enforced content, schedules, time-tables, tests etc; it thereby reduces teachers' academic and professional autonomy.
● The fetishes of testing, categorising students in levels, labelling them and 'teaching at the right level' (TaRL) are likely to lead to segregation among students, apart from differential curricular content and assessment. This is apart from the harmful and dangerous phenomenon, already documented in research wrt the above-mentioned avatars, of subtle exclusion of students, 'teaching to test', manipulation of data/results, unfair assessment of teachers' work etc.
● This erroneous emphasis on FLN and learning outcomes inevitably leads to the point where the NEP talks of children entering even the earliest grades to be 'school ready' rather than the other way around! The conception of a 'Preparatory Class' before grade 1 and the 'school preparation module' attest to the performative focus under the FLN approach.
● An attempt is made to resolve the contradiction between more progressive, researched and constructivist pedagogical approaches like whole language, emergent literacy etc on the one hand, and phonics, the traditionalist method of teaching from bottom-up and focussing on letters, matras through the adoption of 'Balanced Literacy Approach' (NCF-FS, Section 4.5.1.4)
● It is instructive that while under NEP/FLN, a lot of material and text has been supplied by the SCERT and SSA, much of it is restricted to charts on ‘counting’, ‘tables’, the varnamala etc.
● Under its Chunauti program (2016), the Delhi Government brought out the Pragati Series of texts in collaboration with Pratham as a 'supplementary learning material'. Though these texts were often used as substitute material to the NCERT books, they had to refer to NCF 2005 and the Learning without Burden report (1993) to earn legitimacy and credibility.
● Likewise, variations and diversity among children's learning processes is also projected as a handicap.
● It is not clear how robust textbooks like, say, the post-2005 NCERT ones, and an unhindered and uncompromising curriculum would not anyway subsume the objectives of attaining the minimalist proficiency levels under FLN.
● Often, children's natural and normal progression with time, as they advance through classroom interaction and processes, is credited to the FLN strategy!
● Aspects like Play, Building a Positive Relationships between Teachers and Children and Conversations, Stories, Toys, Music, Art and Craft (NCF-FS 2022, Sections 1.4, 4.3 and 4.4, respectively) are, at best, made externally-driven (and, thereby, turned into anxiety-generating exercises!) or, much more frequently, completely sacrificed at the altar of FLN targets. (See MCD Time-Table)
● It is not clear how reading a simple sentence differs from reading a paragraph and a short story, especially when the latter is composed of the former. Similarly, while it is recognised that a 'Premature introduction of the script to very young children who are in their early stages of oral language acquisition would be counterproductive for literacy development', it is also suggested that 'script reading and writing requires explicit instruction [with] meaning-making...not [to] be postponed till [the] end of learning all aksharas..'(NCF-FS, p 257 and 260, resp) This need for 'explicit instruction' is then supposed to gel with the idea of 'indirect teaching for developing conceptual understanding' (from 'Learning Maths with Jodogyan', page 19 of 'Bridging Learning Gaps', a Delhi Government document). A similar hotchpotch of conceptual articulation can be seen when the NCF-FS brings together a range of disparate terms like emergent literacy, varna, decoding, meaning making, fluency, comprehension etc.
● Experience and observations of the emanation of FLN in schools: no textbooks, textbooks replaced with worksheets (often standalone and delivered online), students torn from their classes and segregated 'as per levels', haphazard modules making even lesser sense to teachers, extensive data and report filing, acute loss of teaching time and reduction in meaningful, relaxed and prolonged interaction with students.
● Continuous Assessment under FLN, in gross terms, has also led to a further reduction in actual teaching time. This is purely apart from the time consumed by the constant filing of reports and data. Much of it resembles the round-the-clock supervision of grave patients in medical institutions, and presents a self-fulfilling picture of unhealthiness.
● Ad-hocism has further increased under the growing shadow of FLN. While there are no exams for Grades1 and 2 in both KV and Delhi Government schools, MCD schools have surpassed their already gross policy of evaluating these kids for the non-existent science and social studies subjects (at this level) by introducing paper-pencil question papers for what should be at the most an oral exercise. In line with this pedagogic mis-understanding, ignoring the fact that policy documents and governments have targeted the development of 'reading skills' by Grade 3, MCD administration is showing an increasing emphasis and obsession with identifying reading tasks/levels from Grade 1 itself! The ghastly imprint of pushing children to attain 'FLN standards' is plain to see.
Threat to Teachers
● FLN is tied to producing data for measuring teachers' (labour) performance and, eventually, influencing their service conditions, including salaries, reports, promotions etc.
● On the other hand, the discourse is used to address and blunt the disaffection/criticism wrt the unemployment crisis by advancing the narrative of 'low/unemployable skills' of the young seeking jobs.
● In terms of its minimalist conception, especially for students from working class and historically marginalised backgrounds, it is possible that a section of teachers may agree with FLN's objectives.
● With increasing and almost all-encompassing centralisation of monthly/weekly/daily plans, classroom activities and practices, time-tables, assessments etc, teachers are feeling an acute sense of loss of agency and hollowing out of whatever de-facto autonomy they enjoyed before. Moreover, the continuous, ad-hoc and urgent demands of departmental orders, including non-academic tasks and data-entry (whose financial cost, even in schools, are borne by teachers from their pockets and which extends to post-school hours and holidays), is leading to a feeling of confusion/identity crisis about their intellectual work and role.
● FLN poses a serious challenge to the ethical and professional commitment of teachers, as well as to their legal fidelity. The obsession with continuously assessing students’ ‘learning levels’ goes hand-in-hand with the pressure on teachers to produce improvements in the periodic FLN class reports they are forced to submit. This performance pressure inevitably leads to a situation where admissions of children seen as lagging behind their grade-specific FLN parameters, are, in violation of the law, either denied or delayed (wherein they may be asked to come later after getting the ‘learning deficit’ removed/reduced through private tuitions or ‘home support’). Obviously, these children are seen by some teachers as posing a risk to the FLN reports of their class. Some of these teachers may even end up showing an unwillingness, whether implicit or explicit, to take these ‘risky’children in their respective classes.
● Even if, for a moment, we were to accept the empirical grounds on which the reductionist pedagogy within the FLN project is said to be based (that 'this is how children actually learn'), as teachers who value their autonomy and conceive of pedagogy as a healthy though uncertain/undefined/undefinable mix of art and science, we are unable to agree to its diktats. Teaching is an aesthetic work. We seek and cherish beauty in our work. FLN actively thwarts this pursuit and ideal.
● The policy of creating a species of Mentor Teachers, both in Delhi Govt and MCD schools, amounts to withdrawing teachers from classrooms and teaching, and compromising their comradely/collegial relationships by using them for supervisory and monitoring duties.
The denigration of Expert/Educationists’ Advise
● The flourishing of FLN has been preceded by and accompanied with a denigrating of the disciplinary area of education and the role of educationists both in terms of policy making and state's discourse, whether seen in Gujarat (Gunotsav 2009) or Delhi (Chunauti, 2016 and Mission Buniyad 2018).
● FLN has compromised, co-opted and subverted the more academically grounded stream of research and work on reading (eg NCERT’s Barkha series of books) within institutions like the NCERT. On the other hand, we need to ponder if the primary conception of levels/outcomes was always destined to fall into that trap.
● While there is an unending demand for and throwing around gross and miniscule data in support of FLN, there seems to be a glaring gap in terms of robust and uncompromised research studies on the issue.
Defrauding working-class children
● The FLN discourse has been built over the seemingly obvious fact of large sections of students struggling to learn, which is not seen as linked to their socio-economic alienation and marginalisation, but instead misappropriated to argue for and posit policy interventions likely to marginalise them further.
● Time-lined and data-driven targets, especially to do with a transactional process like teaching-learning, are, as shown by scholars and research across the world, prone to lead to exclusion of the weakest, manipulation, fudging, teaching-to-test, compromise with standards etc. (See Diane Ravitch)
● The change in the RTE Act Rules in 2017, to bring in ‘outcomes’, can be seen as a precursor to the introduction of FLN in schools. While this change prepared the ground for FLN, it also marks a conjoint shift away from the state’s lip-service to the discourse of children’s rights, state’s accountability and classroom processes, toward teachers’ individual accountability and minimalist ‘outcomes’, mischievously clothed in the language of guaranteed outputs. This shift thereby ends up in the double cruelty of punishing children twice over (by compromising the curriculum, segregating, excluding and eventually failing them) after snatching their rights. Moreover, it does all this by cleverly absolving the state of all responsibility except for forcing and manipulating a constant flow of compromised data as a vindication of its obnoxious policies.
● In the context of India's caste-based social system and culture, still much entrenched in schools, especially in certain parts of the country, even an ostensible learning-level based segregation (TaRL) among children within same Grades faces the risk of aiding or leading to or justifying more sinister forms of discrimination and segregation.
References
A.
From Minimum Levels of Learning at Primary Stage, Report of the Committee set up by the MHRD (Department of Education), published by the NCERT, Feb 1991
...large-scale expansion has resulted in the creation of educational facilities with widely varying quality in terms of institutional infrastructure, teaching-learning processes as well as the quality of students passing out of these institutions. The quality variations become more pronounced in certain states, between schools of rural and urban areas, between schools managed by government and non-government bodies, and so on. Recognizing the urgent need for rectifying this anomalous situation with respect to quality, the National Policy on Education 1986 calls for paying immediate attention to (i) improving the unattractive school environment, the unsatisfactory condition of buildings and inadequacy of instructional material; and (ii) laying down minimum levels of learning that all children completing different stages of education should achieve. Keeping this policy directive in view, the Report of the Working Group on Early Childhood and Elementary Education Set up for Formulation of Eighth Five Year Plan states: The targets need to be spelt out not only in terms of participation, but also in terms of quality and outcomes. During the Eighth Plan, it should be our aim to bring about a substantial improvement in quality of education through improved infrastructure, improved teacher education, and substantial improvement in quality and quantity of learning materials. In terms of outcomes it shall have to be ensured that minimum levels of learning are laid down with reference to the conclusion of primary and upper primary stages and an appropriate evaluation system created to ensure achievement at least of the prescribed levels of learning.
1.2 In fact, significant efforts towards specification of Minimum Levels of Learning (MLLs) had already been made at the NCERT during 1978 in connection with the UNICEF-assisted projects on 'Primary Education Curriculum Renewal' and 'Developmental Activities in Community Education and Participation'. As part of these projects, a 'Minimum Learning Continuum' was drawn indicating the learning outcomes expected to be achieved by all children completing Classes II, III, IV and V. The Primary Education Curriculum Renewal Project was evaluated in 1984 using a set of achievement tests developed for all the primary classes based on the competencies specified in the Minimum Learning Continuum. Utilizing the empirical evidences collected through this evaluation study and following the National Policy on Education 1986, the NCERT prepared another document entitled, 'Minimum Levels of Learning at the Primary Stage'.
1.3 In the context of these exercises and the specifications made by the Eighth Plan Working Group, the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development organized a seminar in December 1989 on the theme, 'Basic Learning Needs and Levels of Attainment'. Various issues related to basic learning needs of the children at the primary stage, the need for specifying minimum levels of learning and creation of appropriate mechanisms for assessment of learner attainment were discussed during the seminar. On the issue of laying down minimum levels of learning the seminar recommended for initiating concrete efforts at the national level.
2. Committee on MLL: Composition and Terms of Reference
Against this background, the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India set up the present committee vide order No. 74/3/89- Desk(TE) dated 5 January 1990.
2.1 Terms of Reference
The terms of reference of the committee were as under:
1. Draw up minimum levels of learning for Classes III and V.
2. Recommend a procedure for comprehensive learner evaluation and assessment. 3. Look into the non-cognitive areas of learning and suggest concrete ways in which teaching in these areas can be improved. The committee was further informed that the terms of reference related to both formal and non-formal systems of education. (Chapter 1, Introduction, Pages 1, 2)
The Terms of Reference were limited to setting levels in Language, Mathematics and EVS for grades 3 and 5, but the committee went on to do so for all five grades!
Chapter 2, Minimum Levels of Learning: Some Important Features, advances concerns of equalising standards and defining them in terms of competencies; accountability, school improvement, low learning levels and huge number of dropouts, the need to ensure that they (the dropouts) are able to function as useful adults etc, and overload of content. It suggests the following as solutions: lightening the curriculum, contextualisation outside of textbooks, ensuring sustainable comprehension and skills, and equalising mastery learning across students.
B
ASER tool used for baseline assessment in the Delhi Govt's Chunauti program (2016) and the role of Pratham, Room to Read etc in the development of 'alternative textbooks' and workbooks under the SCERT.
C.
The NCF-FS 2022 has a separate Chapter on Language (Chapter 3: Approach to Language Education and Literacy) but none for Maths.
D.
Some of us were witness to the Constitution Club (Delhi) programme held in 2012/13 where Karthik Muralidharan presented the summary of a research on 'school choice/vouchers' carried out in the then Andhra Pradesh. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, then Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission, spoke in agreement with the conclusions of the report (favoring withdrawal of the state from public schooling) and Rukmini Bannerjee, rather presciently, (and confidently!) as it turned out, argued for dismissing subject areas like EVS from the primary grades.
E.
'The first step is measurement, for whatever cannot be measured cannot be accounted for.' (Keeping tabs on carbon with an accounting system, Amar Patnaik and Rjesh Kasturirangan, Editorial Page, The Hindu, Oct 5, 2023)
F.
FLN has found a place in the latest G20 (Delhi) declaration. It is articulated in terms of the SDGs and confirms our fears and criticism that it is not conceived on educational grounds.
G.
From the June 2015 zero draft of the outcome document for the UN summit (Sep 2015) to adopt the post-2015 Development Agenda: '....to facilitate preparations for the next inter-governmental negotiations...ensuring education [and] access to learning that helps them acquire the knowledge and skills needed to exploit opportunities and to participate fully in society.' [Education conceived not for transformation but as a self-centred, status-quo enabling project.] The document makes clear that the implementation of the agenda 'will require both public and private, domestic and international [agencies]...[and] Business, the private sector and philanthropic organisations will feature prominently..' It commits to multilateral trading system for the realisation of the new Agenda and resolves that 'Governments and public institutions will work closely with national parliaments, local authorities, international institutions, business and the private sector, civil society, academia, philanhropic organisations, voluntary groups and others..' [Notice the order of those identified and the clear absence of Unions, Professional bodies etc. Also, the superfluous and giveaway suggestion that governments work with parliaments and local bodies, whereas they are anyway mandated to do so!] Finally, the tellingly directive statement that 'SDGs have Targets...elaborated through indicators..focused on measurable outcomes.' Thus, Point 6 of Goal 4 which earlier said: 'By 2030, ensure that all youth and at least X% of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy', in the latter Section of Targets, under Means of Implementation, is ominously but inevitably proposed to be revised to: 'By 2030, ensure that all youth and adults, both men and women, reach a proficiency level in literacy and numeracy sufficient to fully participate in society.'
H.
The Development Team for Vidyarambh, Workbook for School Preparedness to strengthen FLN skills, includes Room to Read India Trust, Pratham and Ahavan Trust. Its stated objective is 'to support pre-literacy and pre-numeracy skills...aligned with NEP and NIPUN Bharat's 3 goals...children maintain good health and well being, are effective communicators and involved learners, and connect with their environment.'
I.
Pratham/ASER (based on Pratham's/ASER's reports, websites etc)
Pratham was set up in 1996 with a focus on ensuring that children acquire basic skills in reading and arithmetic. They soon developed a tool for assessing children's 'learning levels.' This was a single sheet of paper with 4 levels of text - letters, simple and common words, a short 4-line para with easy sentences and a longer (Grade 2) text with more complex vocabulary. Arithmetic tool was based on Grade 3/4 level operations. By 2004, while enrollment had been universalised [!], there was no information on the outcomes of primary education. Pratham's experience was negative on this. ASER was set up in 2005 with the objective of finding out whether children were learning and policies and programmes were working. It seems that the Maths assessment tool was created later, but before 2005 when the first survey was carried out. ASER Center set up in 2008, for providing timely data on educational outcomes, capacity building wrt monitoring and evaluation, and empirically grounded advocacy. 2015 saw a break after 10 annual ASER reports. Still claimed to be providing the only data on foundational learning levels, and these said to be not improving. Pratham has been critical of the 'automatic pass' policy. It was also critical of the UPA government's lack of concern with outcomes. It was critical of earlier policies, claiming that they were not based on data/evidence. On the other hand, some of its earliest work and proposed solutions included 'remedial teaching' by 'local volunteers' (Teaching at the Right Level, TaRL, which was, in turn, criticised for pushing 'unqualified', 'untrained' and 'lowly paid' youth into classrooms). In spite of this position critical of the policies of the then ruling dispensation, by 2012, not only had ASER been cited in the Economic Survey of India, Approach Paper to the 11th FYP, Education Chapter of the 12th FYP, but its reports were also released by the MHRD Minister himself! Unsurprisingly, the reports' findings continued to 'shock the nation'. There are echoes of the buildup to the USA's NCLB Act (2001) here.
J.
Meanwhile, the scope and frequency of the National Achievement Survey (NAS, begun, under the NCERT, in 2001, initially limited to Grades 3, 5 and 8, but later extended to 10 too) has been slowly increasing at the national level. Some states have instituted their own SLASs. These were/have been school-based assessment surveys that focused primarily on grade-level content in Maths (Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry), Language (Language Elements, Reading Comprehension, Writing) and EVS (Social Studies, Science). The 2010 report used the terms 'learning achievement' and 'learning levels'. The narrative has been converging with that of ASER, assuming a saturation with access, underlining the need to assess the health of the government education system and thereby to feed into policies and interventions.
K.
Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Report -2nd edition (from a PIB, Delhi, release)
The report was released by Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman EAC to the PM, at #TheIndiaDialog organised by Institute for Competitiveness and US-Asia Technology Management Centre, Stanford University, on 23/24 February, 2023. It focuses on language. [Mathematics missing again!] A special section covers insights into states/UTs to assess learning outcomes on the NAS and Foundational Learning Study (FLS) 2022. A section explicitly focuses on the numerous initiatives at the national and state level in collaboration with public-private organisations, demonstrating their efforts in achieving foundational learning goals as outlined in NIPUN. The report is said to be a benchmark for achieving universal foundational learning by 2026-27. It recommends various assessments pertaining to phonology, vocabulary/lexicon and syntax (said to be the linguistic system) and symbols and mapping principles (said to be the orthographic system), and the writing mechanism. It emphasises data monitoring at a disaggregated level for FLN outcomes to be integrated into the system. The authors of the report are: Amit Kapoor (Chair, Institute for Competitiveness), Natalia Chakma (Researcher, ditto) and Sheen Zutshi (Research Manager, ditto). [Institute for Competitiveness, India 'is the Indian knot in the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School...based on the body of research and knowledge as pioneered over the last 25 years by Prof Michael Porter at the Institute.'] Panelists included Karen Klimowski (Deputy India Mission Director, USAID), Pawan Sain (Joint-Sec, EAC-PM), Arundhati Gupta (Founder and CEO, Mentor Together), Asha Jadeja (Founder, Motwani Jadeja Foundation) and the discussion was chaired by Geetha Murali (CEO, Room to Read). Of course, academic institutions and academicians are conspicuously absent from these lists. Moreover, the following excerpt from the Keynote address delivered by Geetha Murali is instructive for the linkages it presents and supports between the 'Indian languages' and the bottom-up approach of FLN which tends to align with memorisation and rote practice even at the cost of meaningfulness: 'The other nuances of the Indian context important to be kept in mind is the automaticity required at both the Akshara and the text level as the Indian languages are Akshara based scripts. So, as you are developing curriculum, the phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension have to be split out into lessons that are taught appropriately without overloading children.'
L.
EFA, MDGs, SDGs and Learning Outcomes
From EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015, 'Education for All 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges'
'Goal 6 Quality of education: Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognised and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills. In 1990, the World Declaration on Education for All [EFA] committed countries to improving quality of education. The declaration identified quality as a prerequisite for achieving the fundamental goal of equity....While many countries have made impressive gains in access to education since Dakar, improvement in quality has not always kept pace. A discernible shift in emphasis towards quality and learning is likely to become more central to the post-2015 global framework, since, as the 2013/14 EFA Global Monitoring Report [GMR] showed, 250 million children have not had the chance to learn the basics - and 130 million of them have spent at least four years in school....[The chapter] provides an overview of the role of national, regional and international assessments in better monitoring of education quality as measured by learning outcomes. The chapter then covers four areas key to improving quality: teachers, textbooks and other instructional materials and facilities, teaching and learning processes, and governance [including both decentralisation and private schooling],' (p 189) [While some areas have gained salience, others have received a mixed or silent response, but 'decentralisation' has definitely been betrayed in favour of an increasing, even suffocating centralisation.]
'To be used successfully, targets need to be specific, measurable, realistic and relevant.' (Chapter 9, p 283)
'The proposed education SDG and targets are considerably broader than the corresponding MDGs with their narrow focus on primary education completion and gender parity. The SDG targets more closely reflect the holistic vision of the EFA movement, which recognised that all levels of education were interrelated...the proposed SDG targets are more oriented to outcomes.' (p 284-285)
'If targets cannot be adequately measured now or in the foreseeable future, accountability is threatened. Indeed, the use of the term 'targets' implies that the SDG agenda emphasises quantitative measurement.' (p 286) [Though, the two-para sub-section is titled 'Some targets are not measurable'.]
'It is remarkable that there is no overall finance target.' (p 290)
SDG 4.1.1 is marked as an improvement on MDG which focused on inputs and access. It sets up outcome indicators at 3 levels in Maths and Reading (later changed to numeracy and literacy) - early primary (2/3), primary (5) and lower secondary (8). The UNESCO-Institute of Statistics (UIS) is the custodian agency for most of the SDG 4 global indicators, while OECD is the partner agency.
The UIS laments that either national level assessment data is non-existent or, where it does exist to some extent, is fragmented. UIS was said to be preparing a Global Framework for reading and Maths and developing approaches for equating or linking the data for certain national assessments to this framework. It is interesting that while even the USA and New Zealand which do have such national level indicators/data do so for a lower secondary stage and the EU does so at early youth level, yet the criticism is directed at many other countries, especially from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, for not having such data! [There is more to it than meets the eye. Is it about the investors' need to know about the 'knowledge/skill' levels of the prospective labour force?]
M.
Foundational Learning Study (FLS) 2022
The study was carried out in March 2022, under the NIPUN Bharat program. It covered 20 languages, 86,000 Grade 3 students from 10,000 schools. The core team included statisticians and scientists. It had 4 objectives: to assess LOs, set baseline for NIPUN, set Benchmark and produce data to report on SDG 4.1.1 indicators. Assessment was done at 4 levels, as per the 'Global Proficiency Levels' - below partially meets, partially meets, meets, exceeds. The report claims that 'foundational literacy skills including oral language comprehension, phonological awareness, decoding, reading comprehension, oral reading fluency with comprehension, were assessed as part of assessment. For foundational numeracy, number identification and comparison, number operations, multiplication and division facts, measurement, fraction, patterns and data handling are included.' Nevertheless, the presentation of data seems to be limited to CWPM and RCQ. Interestingly, maximum schools and students in the study were English medium: 40% and 43%, respectively! [Perhaps, something to do with the need to 'report progress on the SDG targets'!] English, Hindi and Urdu cover nearly 655 of schools and 71% of students in the study, leaving barely a third to the rest of the 17 languages. Confirming the trend of the privileging of language over Maths in these policies and documents, 4 out of the 5 Bench-marking workshops in Literacy and Numeracy conducted in the process of preparing the study were devoted to the former.
From Annexure 1 to the FLS report
The study focused on 'Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) with Reading Comprehension of class 3 children along with other dimensions of foundational learning.' The Task given was: 'reading aloud a short story of 60-70 grade level appropriate words and answering a total of 5 retrieved and inference based questions from the story.' As per NIPUN, class 3 children 'should be able to read at least 60 words per minute correctly and with comprehension depending on the language and with correct pronunciation from an age appropriate unknown text.' [There is a hint of a contradiction here. The data itself may be revealing on this.]
The study is part of the 'Procedure of Policy Linking administered for setting global benchmarks in reading/language/literacy and maths/numeracy at grades 1-9 - for reporting on SDG 4.1.1...for specifying proportions at 2/3-5-8 having a minimum proficiency level in reading and maths, by sex.' [A frank acceptance.] Under the section Global Proficiency Framework (GPF) and Setting Global Benchmarks, it lays out 4 Global Proficiency Levels (see above) and detailed Global Proficiency Descriptors (GPDs) for each level - domains, constructs, sub-constructs and knowledge and skills by grade, subject and level. [Is this linked with how schools are being made to segregate students and provide reports as per 'levels'?]
Sections of Annexure 3 on Maths, especially pages subtitled Global Proficiency for Mathematics: Grade 1 to 9, read like a directive exercise/task set by statisticians and economists to people in education!
N.
From the EFA GMR 2015
'The Dakar Framework, by placing quality at the heart of EFA, emphasises the need for effective strategies to assess and monitor knowledge and skills and demonstrate measurable learning outcomes.' (p 190) [The Dakar Conference was held on 26-28 April 2000 and included, apart from government representatives, agencies like the UNESCO, WB, ADB etc.]
'In the past 25 years, the number of national assessments has grown sharply, increasing from 12 in 1990 to 101 in 2013 [Benavot and Koseleci, 2015].' (p 190)
'National assessments focus more on grades 4-6 than grades 1-3 and 7-9....National assessments are predominantly curriculum-based and subject-oriented. Language [100%] and mathematics [98%] are by far the predominant subjects. More than half the countries that conducted assessments between 2000 and 2013 assessed learning outcomes in science, almost two-fifths [36%] in the social sciences, 33% in foreign languages and 20% in other subjects...' (p 191)
'Increasing use of assessments is supported by a wider movement towards evidence-informed policy and practice in education and in other fields. (Wiseman, 2010)' (p 191)
Refers to ASER's work in throwing light on basic skills and, interestingly, apart from India, gives the example of Pakistan as well.
'USAID, with the support of UNICEF, the World Bank and several bilateral donors, promotes early grade reading assessments (EGRAs) and early grade mathematics assessments (EGMAs).' (p 192) Refers to more than 60 EGRAs and 20 EGMAs, thereby again proving the tilt in favour of reading over maths!
'In the early 2000s, curriculum was content-driven, often criticised as too theoretical, out of date and overloaded. After Dakar, a shift in education policies towards the development of competencies and skills was pervasive. (Westbrook et al, 2013)' (p 207)
The report then lists private school advantages (in terms of learning outcomes), but recognises its limits and disadvantages to equality, and underlines that public school reform may not be enough to attract a broader demographic without efforts to improve perceptions of public schooling as well. (p 216) [A lesson seemingly well-learnt in India!]
'As the scientific reliability and validity of national assessments vary greatly, cross-country comparisons should be taken with care. Nevertheless, national assessments provide country-wide information about an array of learning outcomes according to nationally defined standards and pinpoint areas for government attention and policy intervention.' (p 304)
The tabulation of national learning assessments by country and region throws up the following features: a) National Assessments all over the world, with a few exceptions, have the tendency to limit themselves to particular and minimalist areas of the curriculum - language and maths. b) North America and Western Europe show no example of a national learning assessment under the UNICEF/UNESCO/WB! c) Most UNICEF/UNESCO assessments focused on language/literacy, numeracy and life skills. d) Most WB-supported assessments focused on language and mathematics. e) Most countries which do assess on sciences, social studies/sciences etc do it not under the aegis of the WB.
O.
In November 2018, DCPCR signed an MoU with QCI (a body set up under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry) to assess and evaluate schools in Delhi.
Conclusion/Endnote
● Delhi Government's Chunauti (2016) and Mission Buniyad (2018) precede NEP but emphasise upon and use the FLN narrative without using the term explicitly. Thus, they stand as pre-avatars of FLN and can also be used to verify the worst (or the best!) possibilities inherent in it.
● The positing of targets, including aggregate level learning/outcome demands, is contrary to some of the better-informed policy formulations (for example, Every child learns at their own pace..., Section 4.1, Page 83, Principles of Pedagogy, NCFS 2022).
● This contradiction is further seen when lofty-sounding Aims are reduced to Compromised Goals which are further reduced to Objectified Competencies and finally made to fit into Mundane Learning Outcomes. (NCF-FS 2022, Page 51)
● Many primary schools are made to run Nursery/KG classes without trained or sufficient number of teachers, leave alone support staff (Aayas etc) for these grades.
● Actual teaching time is going down drastically in schools, thanks to teachers tasked with other concerns, made to fulfill governments' unending agendas, interference of other departments and private organisations (through their programs) etc. Moreover, the personnel and technology based surveillance and supervision is amounting to a breathing down the teacher's neck, thereby ensuring that no meaningful teaching-learning/academic process takes place in classrooms. Timely inspections, which were perhaps always bureaucratic, have been compounded with a continuous data collection and report submitting regimen, creating physical fatigue, acute anxiety and a sense of burn-out among teachers. All this is obviously detrimental to teachers' mental health, schools' environment and education.
● The increasing push to digitalise education, including in its governance and delivery/ content, has enabled the administrative control and surveillance inherent in and required under FLN. Whether through whatsapp or mail, it has become easier, on the one hand, to demand instant data and compliance, and, on the other, to put schools and teachers under a constant, suffocating and humiliating leash.
● Taken at its face value, FLN suffers from very low(ly) ambitions, especially for a National Policy. There can be no compromise with academic rigour, the rights of children and the professional dignity of teachers.
● We submit that this education and economic system cannot promise a flourishing future to even those who are seen to be excelling in terms of the FLN parameters. In this sense, it is a red herring. On the other hand, our long and varied experience in schools and with students and communities across the years shows that, while nutrition and culturally/educationally nourishing environment in early years of a child certainly aids their later growth, the fear-mongering warnings about a point-of-no-return being reached by Grade 2/3 or 80/90% brain development occurring by age 3/5 are not validated by how children continue to show surprising and remarkable growth in interest and acumen in the years beyond. There is diversity in how and when children develop their interests and intellectual prowess. It is not a problem or a thing to be afraid of.
● The experience with high sounding and seemingly democratic, even sincere, concerns to do with securing equality in outcomes/results across children from diverse and disparate backgrounds has proven that it is, at best, a double-edged sword, and, at worst, likely to be co-opted and misused by precisely those forces intent on diluting standards, especially for the education of the marginalised.
● The success that the narrative of 'a learning crisis' and 'ensuring measurable learning outcomes' has achieved in terms of shaping policies and discourse is a testimony not only to the continuous, though no doubt networked and lubricated, work done by its partisan agencies, but also to our failure to reach out to the people, especially those directly affected, and lack of work in this area within academia.
● We consider providing extra teaching time and resources to children requiring such support a pedagogically welcome and essential strategy. But segregation in the name of ability-grouping cannot be defended.
● We must look for and create alternative possibilities of meaningful and liberating education. Gijubhai's, Paulo Freire's and Sylvia Ashton-Warner's work can be an inspiration. In terms of textbooks, Eklavya's and post-NCF-2005 NCERT texts are good examples.
● We believe that the FLN-driven policy is destined to fail, but it will cause immense loss and harm to students from the working classes and marginalised sections if it is not stopped at the earliest.
