FLN

In the essay titled “Working with the government as a nobody,” Ashish Shrivastava discusses his organization’s journey in serving underserved children’s educational needs in a geography that has seen intense conflicts. He shows how active listening, building hyper-local partnerships, collaborating with a shared vision, and keeping a resolute focus on the field, can help in building credibility and effective partnerships with people and institutions in the government system.

In ‘Learning to Read is Reading to Learn’ Shailaja Menon provides a brief history of the key ideas in early literacy education in India.

In a piece titled ‘Imagining the Implementation of FLN Mission’ Atanu Sain and Namrata Ghosh discuss how the NEP is trying to respond to the needs of very young learners through a clear focus on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN); they also share the challenges they have faced and the learnings they have gathered through working with various governments and communities in this space.

In ‘How to Approach Early Literacy: Learnings from Past Experiences and Research,’ Hridaykant Dewan shares insights from the adult literacy movement and various research contexts that can act as signposts in our search for effective early literacy interventions.

Keerti Jayaram, in her insightful article titled ‘Foundation Building within Low Literacy Contexts,’ shares the experiences of her organization in fostering reading and writing amongst children who come from communities with minimal levels of literacy.

The ‘Discussion’ section captures conversations and deliberations on topics like “Emerging Priorities in School Education in India over the Next 5-10 Years,” which will be of interest to all of us who work in the domains of education and development.