GS2 ⚖️ Social Justice

NIPUN Bharat

National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy — a mission launched July 5, 2021 to ensure all children achieve foundational literacy and numeracy competencies by Grade 3 (target: 2026–27).

Context & Background

Launched under NEP 2020; implemented through Samagra Shiksha; reaches 5 crore students, 17 lakh teachers, 6 lakh schools across 28 states/UTs (MoE/DSEL, 2025); third-party assessment 2024-25: 48,061 of 64,688 schools evaluated declared "NIPUN."

UPSC Exam Relevance

ASER 2024 (released Jan 2025) recorded 7 percentage point improvement in both reading and arithmetic in Grade 3 — described as the highest gain in two decades; attributable to NIPUN; target 2026-27 still active; three-tier implementation (national-state-district); Balvatika (pre-primary) added.