Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today launched a nationwide 100-day reading campaign – Padhe Bharat. The Campaign is in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 which emphasizes the promotion of joyful reading culture for children by ensuring the availability of age-appropriate reading books for children in their mother tongue, regional and local languages.
The reading campaign aims to have the participation of all stakeholders at the national and state level including children, teachers, parents, community, and educational administrators. In a tweet, Mr. Pradhan said, reading books is a healthy habit and a wonderful way to develop cognitive, language, and social skills. He said, inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to citizens to read books regularly, he is committed to cultivating a lifetime habit of book reading. The Minister encouraged everyone, especially young people to adopt the habit of reading books.
The campaign marks an important step to improve the learning levels of students as it develops creativity, critical thinking, vocabulary, and the ability to express both verbally and in writing. It will help children to relate to their surroundings and real-life situation. Children studying in Balvatika to grade eight will be part of this campaign. During the campaign, one activity per week per group has been designed with the focus on making reading enjoyable and building a lifelong association with the joy of reading. The activities can be done by children with the help of teachers, parents, siblings, or other family members. The reading campaign will be organized till the 10th of April this year.
The 100-day reading campaign will also focus on Indian languages and in this regard, the 21st of February which is celebrated as International Mother Tongue Day has also been integrated with this campaign. This day will be celebrated with the activity of ‘Kahani Padho Apni Bhasa Main’ across the country by encouraging children to read in their mother tongue and local language.
