Spreading Literacy and Numeracy

Janbhagidari events on across the country to create awareness & generate a sense of pride among various stakeholders about G-20, NEP & FLN in run up to G20 4th Education Working Group meeting at Pune

The Ministry of Education is all set to host the 4th and the final Education Working Group (EDWG) meeting in Pune, Maharashtra from 19th to 21nd June, 2023 under the theme of “Ensuring Foundation Literacy and Numeracy, especially in the context of blended learning” and culminate with the Education Ministerial meeting on 22nd June 2023.

Guided by the vision of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for encouraging active participation of people as the central focus of India’s G20 Presidency, Ministry of Education is organizing a series of activities & programs aiming at promoting & endorsing the theme of “Ensuring Foundation Literacy and Numeracy (FLN)” especially in the context of blended learning.

Pursuant to this objective, Ministry of Education in partnership with all States & UTs is holding Janbhagidari events throughout the country to create awareness & generate a sense of pride among various stakeholders like students, teachers, parents & community as a whole, about G-20, National Education Policy & FLN. In this context, a lot of activities including workshops, exhibitions, seminars and conferences have been planned from 1st to 15th June, 2023. The events would be widely organized all across the country at State, District, Block, Panchayat and school level to involve people from all strata of life.

The Janbhagidari event would lead up to the main event i.e. 4th Education Working Group (4th EdWG) discussion at Pune, Maharashtra between 19th to 21st June 2023 and culminate with the Education Ministerial meeting on 22nd June 2023.

A schedule of the events being organized by the Ministry is as under:

– Janbhagidari events on awareness about G20, NEP, FLN in all schools – 1st to 15th June, 2023.

– Exhibition to showcase the best practices in the field of school education, higher education and skill education from 17th to 22nd June, 2023 at Pune, Maharashtra.

– 2-day National Conference on Foundation Literacy and Numeracy on 17th and 18th June, 2023.

As regards the main event, Union Education Secretary Sanjay Murthy has informed that like the previous meetings, a seminar will be preceding the main EdWG Meeting and it will be based on the priority area of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy. He further informed that at the moment, countries such as Spain, Australia, Indonesia, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China and UK have all expressed their interest in the topic of the seminar and will be participating as panellists.

He explained that as a precursor to the G20 EdWG meeting, the Department of Higher Education is organising a seminar in collaboration with ELSEVIER on 16th June at IISER, Pune. The seminar will be held on the theme ‘Accessible Science: Fostering collaboration’. This event will convene stakeholders across the scientific community to discuss best practices for accessible Science, how accessible Science can be applied across individual nations with differing local capacities, and ways to utilize science practices to support global progress, he added.

As a run-up to the main event, a 2-day National Conference on Foundation Literacy and Numeracy, ‘Creating the Base for Lifelong Learning’ will be organised from 17th to 18th June at Savitribai Phule University, Pune. The conference will help identify and discuss the best practices states are adopting in creating an environment that facilitates foundational literacy and numeracy in young learners.

The objective of the conference is to reflect on two important themes – teaching learning approaches and pedagogy for FLN in the context of Multilingualism & capacity building and training of teachers in blended mode.

Experts from various fields have been invited to share their experiences and learning with the audience to identify the areas of joint initiatives, cross learning & the challenges in the implementation. Representatives from the Education Departments of all States & UTs in India, Knowledge partners of Government of India (UNESCO & UNICEF) and civil society agencies will be participating in this event.

Concurrently, an exhibition will be inaugurated on 17th June at Savitribai Phule University, Pune. It will showcase innovative practices being adopted in education and FLN, Digital initiatives, Research & Skill Development, in particular by the States, UTs and other agencies in the field of education Around 100 exhibitors will be participating in the exhibition. He ended by saying that lifelong learning begins when Foundational Literacy ends.

To involve people from all strata of life, numerous activities, including Janbhagidari events, workshop, exhibitions, seminars and conferences have already been started from 1stJune, 2023 at State, District, Block, Panchayat and school level to involve people from all strata of life in the run up to the fourth Education Working Group Meeting of G20.

The entire program is turning out to be a huge success, and has already witnessed a total participation of more than 2.33 crore including 1.57 crore students, 25.46 lakh teachers and 51.10 lakh people from community till Day 12, which is not only unprecedented but also reflects a high level of interest and engagement among masses.

In addition to this, Ministry of Education has launched a pledge titled ‘Shiksha Sankalp’ on mygov.in portal to encourage students, teachers and the general public to pledge to pursue education and lifelong learning to contribute towards the progress of the nation and to keep on developing skills and knowledge to become a responsible citizen of India. More than 1.5lakh people have taken the pledge so far in less than a week’s time.