Can Bihar’s foundational learning reforms turn policy into progress?

By Sakshi Gupta* 

When children return to school after years of disruption, the most basic question is not whether they are enrolled, whether teachers have been trained, or whether schools have received new teaching materials. The real question is much simpler: can they read, write and do basic mathematics?

This question has become increasingly important in India following the COVID-19 pandemic, which deepened existing learning gaps and disrupted classroom education across the country. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 placed foundational literacy and numeracy at the centre of school education, with the NIPUN Bharat Mission setting the goal of ensuring that every child acquires basic reading and numeracy skills by the end of Grade III.

Bihar, like many other states, responded with a wide range of initiatives aimed at strengthening these early learning skills in government primary schools. The state introduced and implemented programmes such as the CHAHAK School Readiness Campaign, structured teacher-training programmes, Teaching-Learning Material (TLM) kits, continuous assessments and academic support mechanisms. On paper, the scale of implementation has been considerable.

Yet the numbers coming from classrooms tell a more complicated story.

According to the ASER 2024 Bihar report, 86.7% of primary schools reported receiving government directives to conduct FLN activities. As many as 90.7% of teachers received offline FLN training, while 77.8% of schools received dedicated Teaching-Learning Materials. Nearly 60.1% of schools conducted school-readiness programmes for Class I students.

These figures suggest that Bihar has built much of the administrative machinery required to implement foundational learning reforms. But the more difficult question is whether these inputs have reached children in the form of actual learning.

The answer remains worrying.

Bihar's Education Challenge

Only 26.1% of Class III children in Bihar were able to read a Class II-level text in 2024. At the other end of the spectrum, 12.7% of Class III children could not even recognise basic letters. Numeracy outcomes were similarly concerning. Only 17.9% of Class III students were able to perform subtraction, while 19.5% could solve simple division problems.

The contrast is striking. Schools are receiving instructions. Teachers are being trained. Learning materials are being distributed. School-readiness programmes are being conducted. Yet a large majority of children are still not reaching the foundational competencies expected of them.

This gap between implementation and learning is at the heart of Bihar's education challenge.

For decades, education policy in India has placed considerable emphasis on expanding school access, increasing enrolment and reducing dropout rates. These achievements have been important. More children are attending school, and fewer are being excluded from the education system. But enrolment alone cannot guarantee learning.

A child can spend several years inside a classroom without acquiring the ability to read a simple paragraph or perform basic arithmetic. This has led to a broader shift in education policy, from asking whether children are in school to asking what they are actually learning once they get there.

Research on foundational literacy and numeracy has also shown that learning does not depend on schools alone. A child's home environment, parental education and household economic circumstances can significantly influence foundational development. This makes the challenge particularly complex in a state such as Bihar, where educational outcomes are shaped by substantial social and economic differences.

The pandemic added another layer to the problem. School closures interrupted classroom learning and contributed to learning loss, particularly among younger children who were still developing basic skills. For children in the early grades, losing months of structured learning can have consequences that extend well beyond the period of closure.

Broader National Priority

The response from policymakers has consequently been to strengthen foundational learning at scale. NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat represent a major shift in national education policy, placing reading with understanding and basic numeracy at the centre of the primary-school experience.

Bihar's response reflects this broader national priority. The state has focused on teacher training, learning materials, school readiness and assessment. These are all necessary components of a functioning foundational learning system.

But necessary does not always mean sufficient.

The figures from Bihar demonstrate why measuring implementation alone can give an incomplete picture of educational progress. If 90.7% of teachers have received FLN training, that tells policymakers something important about programme reach. If 77.8% of schools have received dedicated TLMs, it shows that materials have reached a substantial proportion of schools. If 86.7% of schools have received directives to conduct FLN activities, it indicates considerable administrative penetration.

None of these figures, however, tells us whether a Class III child can read.

That can only be established by measuring the child's learning.

This distinction between inputs, implementation and outcomes is crucial. Inputs include teacher training, learning materials and policy directives. Implementation refers to the processes through which these initiatives reach schools and classrooms. Outputs can include teacher participation, material distribution and programme coverage. Outcomes are what children can actually do as a result of these efforts.

For foundational learning, the final measure of success must therefore be the child.

There are, however, some signs of progress. Bihar's learning outcomes have improved compared with earlier years in certain areas. Among children in government schools, the proportion of Class III students able to read a Class II-level text increased from 12.3% in 2018 to 20.1% in 2024. The percentage of students able to perform subtraction increased from 18% in 2018 to 28.2% in 2024.

These changes are encouraging, particularly in the context of the disruption caused by the pandemic. They indicate that improvement is possible and that learning levels are not static.

Learning Outcomes

But improvement should not be confused with achievement.

Even after these gains, the proportion of children demonstrating the required foundational competencies remains far below the ambition of universal literacy and numeracy by Grade III. The distance between where Bihar is today and where national policy expects it to be remains substantial.

The challenge now is to understand why strong implementation has not produced stronger learning outcomes.

One possibility is that training and material distribution need to be accompanied by sustained academic support. A teacher attending an FLN training programme is an important first step, but training must translate into classroom practice. Teachers may need continued mentoring, academic guidance and support in using assessment results to identify and address individual learning gaps.

Teaching-Learning Materials can play an important role, but their presence in schools does not automatically guarantee their effective use. Materials need to be integrated into everyday classroom practices and adapted to the learning levels of children.

Assessment is another critical piece of the puzzle. Traditional assessments often focus on whether students can reproduce information, while competency-based assessments attempt to identify what students can actually understand and do. The PARAKH assessment framework highlights the importance of measuring specific competencies rather than relying solely on broad measures of academic performance.

Better assessment can make it easier to identify children who are falling behind and determine exactly where they need support. A child who cannot read a Class II-level text may not have the same difficulty as another child who cannot recognise letters. Treating both children as having the same learning problem can make interventions less effective.

The physical environment in which children learn also matters. UDISE+ data point to continuing infrastructural challenges in Bihar, including the absence of libraries, playgrounds and computer facilities in many schools. Infrastructure by itself cannot solve foundational learning problems, but inadequate facilities can limit the learning environment available to children and teachers.

Community-based Approaches

The home environment is equally important. Parents and families can play a major role in strengthening children's foundational skills, particularly through reading, conversation, simple number activities and support with schoolwork. Where parents have limited educational opportunities themselves, however, expecting families to compensate for weaknesses in the school system can create another layer of inequality. Community-based approaches may therefore be necessary to ensure that parents are able to participate meaningfully in children's learning.

What Bihar needs is a stronger connection between the administrative side of education and the classroom side of education. Instead of asking only how many teachers have been trained or how many schools have received TLMs, policymakers need to ask whether children are progressing from one competency level to the next.

A dedicated state-level mechanism for monitoring foundational literacy and numeracy could help create this connection. Such a system could regularly bring together evidence from school assessments, state-level surveys, ASER, PARAKH and UDISE+ to track learning outcomes over time. More importantly, the information should be used to guide action rather than simply produce another set of statistics.

The larger lesson from Bihar is relevant far beyond the state. Education systems can become very good at measuring activity. They can count schools, teachers, training sessions, learning materials and enrolment figures. These indicators matter, but they are not the destination.

The destination is learning.

For Bihar's youngest students, the difference between receiving a textbook and being able to read it, between attending a numeracy lesson and being able to solve a problem, is the difference between implementation and impact.

The state has already invested substantially in the infrastructure of foundational learning reform. The next challenge is to ensure that those investments produce visible gains in children's abilities.

Ultimately, the success of foundational literacy and numeracy reforms cannot be determined by the number of directives issued, teachers trained or materials distributed. It must be judged by what children can actually read, understand, write and calculate.

Bihar has made progress. The numbers show that. But the same numbers also make clear that much of the journey remains unfinished. The next phase of the state's FLN effort will need to move beyond ensuring that programmes reach schools and focus relentlessly on ensuring that learning reaches children.

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*B.A. (H) Political Science, University of Delhi