CBSE Reading Mission 2021-2023

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday said it is launching a Reading Mission in partnership with Pratham Books and Central Square Foundation (CSF) to promote reading literacy among the elementary school learners.

The CBSE Reading Mission 2021-23, a two-year initiative to encourage students to read and engage actively with books. This project will help students to acquire the critical competency of reading with comprehension as envisaged in the National Education Policy.

Early childhood learning and improvement of reading and mathematics has been emphasized in the NEP 2020. The reading deficit and lack of comprehension in schools have been a constant issue for students and several studies such as ASER by education non-profit Pratham Education have shown how almost 50% of students in primary level fall way short of their level of reading and comprehension.

According to ASER report January 2019, Indian students, especially those in elementary school (Classes I-VIII), are not learning enough. To cite one metric, only half (50.3%) of all students in Class V can read texts meant for Class II students.

As part of the new mission, teachers of Hindi and English across the CBSE’s more than 25,000 schools would be provided quality-reading material suited for learners of classes I-VIII. The Board would offer a number of student enrichment activities focused on language building during this mission to enhance reading skills of students.

The board is partnering with Pratham Books’ Story Weaver and Central Square Foundation to launch this two-year mission on Monday and under this mission, the schools and teachers shall have access to a repository of quality English and Hindi children’s storybooks and supplementary resources for Classes I to VIII.

“The Reading Mission will help build a culture of reading and the wholesome development of students by enhancing their vocabulary, deriving connections between stories and their own lives, and exposing them to new ideas,” CBSE said.