A three-day residential workshop on the Special Numeracy Programme for primary teachers in Sikkim was conducted at SICUN, Assam Lingzey, Pakyong district, from January 28 to 30, 2025. The workshop was inaugurated by Rabin Chhetri, Director of SCERT, Education Department, on January 28.

Chhetri, in his address, stressed the government’s dedication to the Special Numeracy Programme and its efforts to ensure that every child in the state achieves foundational numeracy. The workshop brought together teachers from 34 Block Resource Centres (BACs) and 8 Nodal schools from six districts. These teachers, who are members of the State Resource Group (SRG), have undergone over a year of training and will now train other primary teachers across Sikkim as part of the NIPUN Bharat initiative, also known as NIPUN Sikkim.

The programme, designed to eliminate the fear of mathematics and make learning more meaningful for classes 1 and 2, is currently implemented in 8 Nodal schools, 34 SRG schools, and 212 mentor schools. The aim of the workshop was to further empower these trained teachers to mentor and train educators from the remaining 767 schools in the state.

The workshop concluded on January 30, with Tashi Chopel Lepcha, Secretary cum State Project Director, Samagra Shiksha, Education Department, Government of Sikkim, attending the valedictory session. He highlighted the importance of building strong numeracy skills at the foundational level, which are essential for developing problem-solving abilities and logical thinking necessary for advanced subjects like physics, economics, and engineering.

The workshop was organized by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and facilitated by SCERT faculty members Kuldip Sharma, Dhiraj Sharma, and Rajiv Philip, along with resource persons from Jodogyan, New Delhi.