Central Square Foundation to host Education Conclave on Foundational Learning and steps to make Bharat NIPUN

Launch of a first-of-its-kind household survey, ‘BaSE: Bharat Survey for EdTech’, aimed at bringing the voice of EdTech users from Bharat to the discourse around EdTech

Fireside chat with Sanjay Kumar IAS, Secretary, Dept. of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, on the progress around the NIPUN Bharat Mission

Key speeches by Global Foundational Learning experts on India’s progress on foundational literacy in order to improve student learning outcomes

New Delhi, April 6, 2023: Central Square Foundation (CSF), a leading non-profit in the space of primary education, is gearing up to host the inaugural edition of its annual conference titled ‘CSF Education Conclave 2023’ on April 11, 2023 in New Delhi. With the theme for the opening edition being ‘Building a Strong Foundation for School Education in India’, the forum is aimed at generating conversations around the status of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skill-building and resultant student learning outcomes in India.

Featuring a lineup of curated panel discussions with education experts, interactive talks by teachers and students, and one-to-one interactions with government stakeholders, the conference is also aimed at bringing into the mainstream a dialogue on education technology (EdTech) and early childhood education in India (ECE) as critical levers for strengthening foundational learning for children across all states in India.

Sanjay Kumar IAS, Secretary, Dept. of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, Govt. of India will participate in an engaging fireside chat with Ashish Dhawan, Founder-CEO, The Convergence Foundation. As part of this session, they will speak about taking the objectives laid out in NEP 2020 and the NIPUN Bharat Mission to all of India’s classrooms. The conclave will also see the unveiling of CSF’s first household survey, ‘BaSE: Bharat Survey for EdTech’. Aimed at bringing the voice of the end-user in Bharat (India) to the discourse on EdTech, the survey findings can act as a common frame of reference for policymakers, educators, and tech innovators to build on the agenda of leveraging technology for improving the quality of education for all. Covering 6,000+ households, the survey was undertaken between November 2022 and January 2023 with parents and guardians of children studying in government and affordable private schools across 6 diverse states of India.

The first panel discussion titled “Ideas Corner 1: Moving the needle on FLN: From commitment to Change” will be curated towards mainstreaming conversations on system-led reforms across states who are implementing the NIPUN Bharat mission. Speakers for the session will include: Dr. Anshaj Singh IAS (State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, Dept. of Education, Govt. of Haryana), Sh. S. Dhanaraju IAS (Director, Rajya Shiksha Kendra, Dept. of School Education, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh) and Sh. Vijay Kiran Anand IAS (Director General, Dept. of Basic Education, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh).

Sharing her thoughts about the conclave, Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja, CEO & MD, Central Square Foundation said, “With over 1.5 million schools and 260 million students, India has one of the largest and most complex education systems in the world. Through this conclave, we aim to bring to the forefront a core challenge to this system i.e. increasing learning poverty among our children and hence, the need for collective focus on ensuring early learning outcomes of all children are met”.