BHUBANESWAR: Over 40,000 people from Odisha, who never went to school or dropped out, appeared in the first foundational literacy and numeracy assessment test (FLNAT) to get the ‘literate’ tag.
The examination was conducted across the country under ‘Nav Bharat Saaksharta Karyakram’ (New India Literacy Programme ) by the Ministry of Education recently to assess basic reading, writing and numeracy skills of neo-literates. Of the 22.70 lakh people in the 15 years and above age group who took the test, 44,702 were from Odisha. On qualifying the exam, they will be declared literates.
Aligned with the National Education Policy-2020, the Centrally-sponsored programme is being implemented since last year and would continue till 2027. It is a volunteer-driven programme targeting all non-literates above the age of 15, with special focus on women and educationally backward states.
Apart from ‘Nav Bharat Saaksharta Karyakram’ volunteers, the programme is being implemented in the state through students of various colleges and universities besides teacher training institutes who were engaged as volunteer teachers to organise teaching- learning activities for people at government schools. Official sources said people who enrolled for the programme were also encouraged to access the learning content in local language in online mode through the DIKSHA platform of NCERT. The Ministry will be organising FLNAT twice a year to certify learners under the programme.
