Our Children Have Told Us A Wonderful Story

medium118665488A moment comes, not too often, when a society can sense joyful satisfaction. Not elation but a quiet happiness. I believe we should savour such a moment now.The recently released Annual Status of Education Report 2024, spearheaded for 20 years by Pratham, with the participation of tens of thousands of volunteers across more than 605 districts calls for celebration. After years of disappointment that the country’s children were not learning as well as they should despite serious efforts of sarkar and samaj, results show there’s a clear uptick in both language and arithmetic skills.This is especially clear in the lower grades up to Class 5. We’re nowhere near where we want to be, with 100% of children at grade level efficiency. But we seem to be at a tipping point, where reversal looks unlikely. Most children seem to have bridged the pandemic deficit, and states like UP have done particularly well.A lot of credit must go to both Centre and state govts. Focus on foundational learning and numeracy (FLN) is yielding results — 80% of schools reported they had received both training and materials for basic learning. Interestingly, gains in competence were consistently higher in govt schools across the country, than in rural budget schools.The focus on little ones is critical. Brain development science tells us more than a million new neural connections are formed every second in the first few years of life. Connections that form early provide either a weak or a strong foundation for connections that form later. Early experiences shape brain architecture, which then determines future learning, behaviour and health too. What happens to 0- to 8-year-olds matters greatly. The National Education Policy has set a goal of universal coverage for all 3- to 6-year-olds to be in high-quality learning environments by 2030. We’re well on the way. Aser tells us that of all rural children, 77.4% of 3-year-olds and 83.3% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool or Aanganwadis.It is hard to attribute this shift to any one cause. But the pandemic created a nationwide jolt to the system. The school system had to go digital. Govt’s ‘Diksha’ platform swung into action. Teachers were trained overnight with new skills. Virtual classrooms and processes were set up. There was a countrywide consensus that children were in danger of falling behind. Everything that could be done would be done to prevent this.Suddenly, families became bigger stakeholders in the process. Especially young mothers, who’re themselves more educated than their mothers, with tremendous hopes pinned on their children. They taught themselves to teach. They learned to go online. They saw how play itself became an opportunity for exploration. How the home could be a laboratory for learning. Across the country, people shared notes about their frustrations and their discoveries.Not all the loss could be prevented. The inherent disadvantage of spending two years without formal teaching is showing up in middle school. The learning levels of children in grades 6,7 and 8 seem to have remained flat across the previous Aser reports. We will need to pay very special attention to these students to bring them up to speed. These are already difficult puberty years and children, if not sensitively engaged with, can fall prey to low self-esteem. There is much work ahead.But there is other good news. Less than 3% of 14- to 16-year-olds were found to be out of school. The majority, 89%, of school-goers have a smartphone at home, of whom 82% know its use reasonably well.Perhaps the native digital citizens now in middle school can leapfrog through new digital tech powered by AI that allows for better self-learning journeys, in language and math. This is already being tried at some scale and success in Tamil Nadu.Meanwhile, younger children need to learn less through screens and more through play. Albert Einstein believed that ‘Play is the highest form of research.’ If all of samaj participated in this process of celebrating childhood learning through free play, maybe we could soon achieve what most countries only dream of — enabling every child to learn how to learn, with joy, agency and dignity.Recently, a nationwide ‘Bachpan Manao’ campaign has been launched. Together with several civil society organisations, including our Ekstep Foundation, it will aim to enthuse communities, schools and families to encourage free play, and get a broader understanding of how it cements future learning skills. GOI has a popular kit for schools called ‘Jadui Pitara’ to unleash imaginative play-based learning. We hope this will become a strong societal mission, just as Aser has become a citizen’s movement to take public stock of children’s learning.Current 3-year-olds, almost all already enrolled in preschool, will be the nation builders of 2047. We have a unique opportunity to nurture this generation of 0- to 8-year-olds, to make them strong lifelong learners, adapted to a fast-changing environment. With big leaps accomplished, this is the quiet happiness moment society can relish and be rejuvenated for the task ahead.The writer is chairperson, Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies