NIPUN BHARAT was launched in the presence of Minister of State, Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Smt. Anita Karwal, Secretary (SE&L), senior officers from the Ministry, all States and UTs, Senior Policy Makers, and Heads of Institutions.

While addressing, Union Education minister Shri Pokhriyal said that NIPUN Bharat aims to cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.  He said that teachers need to focus on every child for developing basic language; literacy and numeracy skills which will help them develop into better readers and writers. Thus, NIPUN Bharat envisages making the experience of learning at the foundational stage Holistic, Integrated, Inclusive, Enjoyable, and Engaging. He also informed that an approval of Rs 2688.18 crore has already been given under the Samagra Shiksha scheme to the States and UTs for implementation of the various interventions for the Foundational Stage in 2021-22.

NIPUN BHARAT, a national mission has been launched to focus on providing access and retaining children in foundational years of schooling; teacher capacity building; development of high quality and diversified Student and Teacher Resources/Learning Materials; and tracking the progress of each child in achieving learning outcomes.

NIPUN Bharat will not only help our students to take a big leap in their higher classes, but it will also have a major impact in making our students globally competitive, said Sanjay Dhotre.

Union Education Minister tweeted, “An amount of INR 7622 crore has been released so far in 2021-22 to states and UTs under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for continuity of various initiatives such as free textbooks and uniforms, running of KGBVs, teaching, vocational education, ICT and digital initiatives.

This money will be used for free textbooks and uniforms, support for teachers’ salaries and in-service training, running of KGBVs, teaching, vocational education, ICT and digital initiatives, etc.

Mr Pokhriyal said the (PRABANDH) Project Appraisal, Budgeting, Achievements, and Data Handling System launched last year has enabled remote approval of annual plans of states under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

It has enabled states to upload plans and everyone to view and appraise it from remote/own locations with automatic compilation by the system, resulting in consolidated recommendations and cost sheets. This was unimaginable in physical mode, added Education Minister.