NEW DELHI: Going by the assessments conducted by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) in March 2022, the percentage of children who could not read letters dropped from 19 per cent to 12 per cent in the past two months. The commission had conducted a reading and mathematical assessment in the city’s 62 child care institutions (CCIs) comprising 955 children.
Children’s homes are for those who cannot live with their families or stay with foster carers. Child care institutions house children who are victims of trafficking, sexual violence, parental incarceration, parental death, child labour, among others.
Commission chairperson Anurag Kundu in a series of tweets as part of the performance report under his chairmanship shared a photograph from one of the children’s homes and said, “Concerned about poor reading levels across India’s schools, the DCPCR had conducted assessment at children homes in March 2022. Our truth was horrifying but our hope was strong. We had collaborated with the directorate of education and Pratham (an NGO). Our goal is – all children are able to read and do arithmetic operations.”
Following this, Kundu shared the figures of the reading and arithmetic assessments and said that children who can read advanced stories increased from 13 per cent to 25 per cent and children who cannot identify digits dropped from 13 per cent to 5 per cent.
He also said children who could not read letters dropped from 19 per cent to 12 per cent. Talking about the future goal, Kundu said, “We have adopted the Delhi government’s Mission Buniyaad model. We have come a long way, but still a longer way to go. We won’t rest until all children receive high quality education, and this starts by our ability to read, and perform basic arithmetic operations.”
Responding to Kundu’s initiative, the directorate of education thanked the DCPCR chairperson and tweeted, “What a powerful resolve. The ability to read brings an opportunity to lead a dignified life. We are with you in this endeavour.”
Similar to Mission Buniyaad programme, the DCPCR had started a reading campaign at the CCIs in August last year in order to work towards enhancing foundational literacy and numeracy skills of children.
Last year, while launching the campaign the commission had stated, “By November 2021, the goal is to ensure all children are able to read Hindi fluently with comprehension and perform arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.”
In two months