According to the NEP 2020, children belonging to an age group of 3-6 should be academically well-equipped, socially and emotionally developed, and physically well-grown to give them a sound and broad-based foundation to raise their children. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education, Government of India has taken the NIPUN or National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy Mission for quality education to children in pre-primary to Grade 2; there is no easy challenge when the same initiative needs to be extended to children at Anganwadi centers. To address this, the state has come up with “Mission Mukul,” targeted at bringing these children under the NEP 2020 and ensuring that they are provided with the same kind of education their peers in other kinds of schools get.

The mission is to tie all Anganwadi centers to local schools so that the learning process of children can be effectively monitored. Thereby, here also, it is planned that up to three Anganwadi centers within a 1.5 km radius of a school would be tagged along with that school. This way, children in these Anganwadi centers will also come on the same platform as that of formal schooling, bridging the gap and improving the opportunity to learn.

Joint Meeting to Facilitate Mission Mukul Implementation

Buder in an attempt to make Mission Mukul operational at every possible level of the state, the Elementary Education Department under the School Education Department today conducted a joint meeting with the Social Welfare and Social Education Department here yesterday at Pragna Bhawan. Attended meeting were key officials, among which were the Director of School Education, the Director of Social Welfare and Social Education, the Joint Director of Social Welfare and Social Education, the Deputy Director of Elementary Education, and the Branch Officer of Pre-primary cum NIPUN Tripura Cell, Abhijit Samajpati. The suggestions and the counter-measures to be taken on by the DEOs, DISE officers from the eight districts, Inspectors of Schools and the CDPOs were heard. The deputy director of Elementary Education, Rudradeep Nath gave a welcome speech at the meeting.
The joint call

N.C. Sharma, Director of Elementary Education while addressing urged cooperation from the officers from the Education and Social Welfare departments. He suggested cooperation at all levels toward making Mission Mukul a successful one and said cooperation from the departments is very much needed for the implementation at the grass-root level. Sharma appealed to Inspectors of Schools and CDPOs to cooperate with each other for the timely as well as perfect implementation of Mission Mukul.

Director of Social Welfare and Social Education, Tapan Kr.

Das expressed thanks to the Education Department for holding the meeting. He hoped that issues raised by officers at the district level would be resolved, which would speed up implementation. He went on to state that though it is not sufficient for a child to grow as an efficient citizen that he should receive good education but he should be well taken care of, and hence, the mission thinks it has achieved that. According to him, this will introduce children to the school setup and will reduce the chances of dropout later. Progress and Future Plans

The Joint Director of Social Welfare and Social Education, Dr Chandrani Biswas, appreciated the idea of Mission Mukul and said that various schemes are already being run by the Social Welfare Department in terms of providing facilities to Anganwadi children. She said that such initiatives have already been working well in many blocks and efforts are in progress to spread it across areas yet to be covered.

Presented the objectives of the mission, existing endeavors, and future activities by Abhijit Samajpati – Branch Officer of Pre-primary cum NIPUN Tripura Cell. He stated that under the scheme of Mission Mukul, children from Anganwadi centers will be monitored by the Education and Social Welfare Departments for holistic development. In the successful completion of the mission, he said that besides teachers and Anganwadi workers, Inspectors of Schools and CDPOs will also contribute.

Training Programs and Funding

The Directorate of Elementary Education will undertake training programs for CDPOs, BRC Coordinators, and Academic Leaders to expedite the process of implementing Mission Mukul.

Sanctioned a fund amount of Rs. 16 lakh; the SCERT has been entrusted with the task of training programs. There are two phases, five days each, for this trainings. Once these CDPOs are adequately trained, they shall further cascade their training to Anganwadi workers so that Mission Mukul is appropriately and penetratively rolled out at the grassroots level. Through this convergent effort, the educational and developmental results for children in Anganwadi centers are likely to be profoundly bettered while instilling quality education and care for their impressionable minds. The facility for equitable and holistic learning of all children in the state under Mission Mukul is what will give them a good footing to grow and succeed in future.