Foundational Literacy and Numeracy
UN sustainable development goal #4 states – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all – to be achieved by 2030.
Door Step School Foundation has been working with the children for their education for the last 3 decades and taking education to the doorstep of ALL children has been our mission all-along.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit us hard in 2020, but it turned out to be a disaster for education of children from underprivileged backgrounds. Due to the pandemic induced school closure for almost two academic sessions, the most adversely affected are the young school going and out-of-school children. There have been already existing challenges of non-enrollment, irregularity, and lower learning levels in their educational continuity as education isn’t exactly a priority for their families and communities. With forced reverse migration, unavailability of resources, they were forced out of mainstream education. And learning at home/within the community was not an option given the total apathy. It has led to a complete loss of learning for them.
The problem has increased manifold due to RTE rules of passing children onto the next year irrespective of his / her level of learning. Also admitting new children according to age means that children are admitted into class without knowing foundational language or number work. The child thus cannot comprehend and chances of dropping out are more. The digital divide has only added to these challenges during the online school.
To remedy the situation, DSS started working on war footing on what it does best – ‘Foundational Literacy and Numeracy’ skills of children. The idea was to equip young children with basic reading, writing and numeracy skills (FLN) and prepare them before schools re-open for the new academic session in June 2022. Under this initiative, between Nov 21 and Mar 22, we reached 28,593 children across 159 communities. Out of these, over 22,000 children attended classes regularly.
As of July 2022, 35% children (10,000) have reached expected reading level as against only 4% children who were able to read in the month of Nov 2021.
Even though the schools reopened this academic year, we decided to intensify our efforts for the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy skills of children.
“Get children (6 to12 years) ready for school and enable Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (Devanagari script which is useful both for Marathi and Hindi) through DSS 120-day program”.
The project methodology includes –
- Survey of the communities to identify the children lacking in FLN skills
- 120-day intervention with them
- Continuous assessment and reporting of children’s progress
- Practice sessions post 120 day intervention to make sure the skills are retained
We believe this project will achieve sustainability in the education of children from less privileged communities. And everyone can collaborate and contribute in this initiative – join us for a better future for these children.