The National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) deserves credit for making Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) a national priority. This itself marks an important shift. For many decades, India’s school education debates focused largely on enrolment and infrastructure. NIPUN Bharat helped redirect attention to the early years, where learning gaps first begin to take shape.
As the mission completes five years, however, its next phase must be guided by two sharper questions. The first is about equity: which children are actually becoming foundationally ready? The second is about continuity: are early gains in reading and numeracy strong enough to support learning after Grade 3?
The equity question matters because state averages can create a false sense of progress. A state may perform well overall while still having districts where children remain far behind. This is visible in the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan data. Punjab, for instance, is among the stronger performers, but variation within the state is substantial. Barnala records 92% both language and mathematics, while Moga stands at 74% in language and 69% in mathematics. Kerala shows a similar internal spread: Ernakulam’s 85% language score contrasts with Wayanad’s 67%. In Maharashtra, Kolhapur recorded 82% in language and 77% in mathematics, while Latur stood at 55% and 51%.
These are not marginal differences. They show why the next phase of NIPUN Bharat cannot be guided by state averages alone. Districts, blocks, and school clusters must become the real units of learning action.
{{/usCountry}}These are not marginal differences. They show why the next phase of NIPUN Bharat cannot be guided by state averages alone. Districts, blocks, and school clusters must become the real units of learning action.
{{/usCountry}}Low-performing districts point to a deeper structural challenge. In Jharkhand, Sahebganj and Pakur are among the weaker districts, with scores of 42% and 39%, and 47% and 44%, in language and mathematics respectively. Districts such as Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh and Gadchiroli in Maharashtra also point to persistent foundational deficits.
Many of these geographies face multiple disadvantages at once: rural poverty, tribal concentration, language barriers, weaker infrastructure, limited teacher availability, and wider socio-economic marginalisation. In such contexts, children may need additional academic, linguistic, and community support to reach the same foundational milestones as children in better-resourced districts.
This is where the question of who becomes NIPUN becomes important. If the mission raises averages but leaves behind vulnerable groups within otherwise strong states, it falls short of its equity promise. The next phase should therefore move from a largely universal FLN push to a more targeted, district-sensitive approach. States should combine classroom reform with community-based and partnership-led support in the weakest geographies. These districts should receive additional support through mother-tongue and bridge-language materials, locally contextualised storybooks and numeracy resources, teacher mentoring for multilingual and multigrade classrooms, and structured remediation for children who are falling behind.
The second question is about continuity. Do early gains in reading and numeracy continue to support learning beyond Grade 3? This matters because foundational learning is not a one-time milestone. Children who fall behind in the early grades often continue to fall behind because later learning depends on skills acquired early. At the same time, early gains can weaken if the school system does not reinforce them in later grades. A child who can read a short passage in Grade 3 may still struggle later if those skills are not strong enough to support comprehension, writing, or subject learning.
Consistent with this concern, PARAKH shows that rural children marginally outperform urban children at Grade 3, but this advantage reverses in Grades 6 and 9. This suggests that early parity, or even early advantage, does not automatically survive the move to higher grades. As textbooks become denser and mathematics becomes more abstract, weak foundations can turn into wider learning gaps.
Grade 3 should, therefore, be treated as a checkpoint, not an endpoint. The next phase of NIPUN must examine how foundational learning can support continuity from Grade 3 to Grade 6 and beyond, and where this continuity is breaking down.
To make FLN gains more durable, NIPUN Bharat should take seriously the Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation to restore oral reading fluency as a core objective. This matters because fluency is linked to accuracy, pace, vocabulary, and comprehension, not merely reading aloud. Without it, children may technically read but still struggle to use reading as a tool for learning.
Numeracy also needs stronger emphasis, with a clearer progression from number recognition and basic operations to measurement, money, fractions, and problem-solving. Regular assessment under NIPUN Bharat should not only identify children who are falling behind, but also assess whether children remain ready for the learning demands that follow.
A mission as ambitious as NIPUN Bharat, focused on universal foundational literacy and numeracy, needs more time. However, the Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation to extend NIPUN Bharat should not mean simply stretching the existing timeline. A meaningful extension should deepen the mission based on lessons from the first five years.
This means sharpening the equity focus by using PARAKH and state assessment data to target districts, blocks, and school clusters where children are most likely to be left behind. It means giving additional support to tribal, rural, remote, and linguistically diverse classrooms. It also means restoring oral reading fluency as a key learning objective and strengthening the numeracy pathway so that Grade 3 becomes the beginning of a stronger learning journey, not the end of the foundational learning agenda.
NIPUN Bharat’s next phase should not be judged by aggregate performance alone. It should be judged by whether the weakest geographies catch up, whether children in marginalised regions receive the support they need, and whether early reading and numeracy continue to support learners through middle and secondary school. The test of the next phase is not only how many children become NIPUN, but whether they remain ready to learn.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Arpan Tulsyan, senior fellow, Centre for New Economic Diplomacy, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.