PIB – 06 July 2021

NIPUN BHARAT PROGRAMME

Focus: GS II- Government Policies and Interventions

Why in News?

Union Minister for Education launched a National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat), for ensuring that every child in the country necessarily attains foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27.

About the Programme:

• This Mission was launched under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha.
• It will 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.
• It aims to cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.
• It emphasizes to focus on every child for developing basic language; literacy and numeracy skills which will help them develop into better readers and writers.
• It envisages making the experience of learning at the foundational stage Holistic, Integrated, Inclusive, Enjoyable, and Engaging.
• The unique feature is that the goals of the Mission are set in the form of Lakshya Soochi or Targets for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy.
• The success of NIPUN Bharat will primarily depend on teachers, so, there will be a special emphasis on capacity building of teachers. 
• A special package for foundational literacy and Numeracy under NISHTHA is being developed by NCERT and around 25 lakh teachers teaching at pre-primary to primary grade will be trained this year.

Following outcomes have been envisaged from implementation of the goals and objectives of NIPUN Bharat Mission:

• Foundational skills enable to keep children in class thereby reducing the dropouts and improve transition rate from primary to upper primary and secondary stages.
• Activity based learning and conducive learning environment will improve quality of education.
• Innovative pedagogies such as toy-based and experiential learning will be used in classroom transaction thereby making learning a joyful and engaging activity.
• Intensive capacity building of teachers will make them empowered and provide greater autonomy for choosing the pedagogy.
• Holistic development of the child by focusing on different domains of development like physical and motor development, socio-emotional development, literacy and numeracy development, cognitive development, life skills etc. which are interrelated and interdependent, which will be reflected in a Holistic Progress Card.
• Children to achieve steeper learning trajectory which may have positive impacts on later life outcomes and employment.
• Since almost every child attends early grades, therefore, focus at that stage will also benefit the socio-economic disadvantageous group thus ensuring access to equitable and inclusive quality education.

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Focus: GS III- Science and technology

Why in News?

Researchers have shown that supervised mindfulness meditation benefits patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in terms of memory and orientation language and visual-spatial perception.

• It has potential as a therapeutic approach for management of cognitive decline associated with neurological disorders.

Alzheimer’s Disease

• Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gradually worsens over time.
• It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia.
• The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events.
• The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is poorly understood, about 70% of the risk is believed to be inherited from a person’s parents, with many genes usually involved.
• Other risk factors include a history of head injuries, depression, and hypertension.
• No treatments stop or reverse its progression, though some may temporarily improve symptoms.