New Delhi, September 8
Jhajjar’s 49-year-old neo-literate Roshni Devi today emerged as the most powerful symbol of female literacy — a goal to which India rededicated itself under the brand new Sakshar Bharat Mission, which was launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. The occasion was International Literacy Day.

The mission sets itself the goal of educating 70 million learners, 60 million of them women, by 2012 through an investment of $1billion; it replaces the old adult literacy mission that began in 1988. The final goal is to take national literacy levels from 64 per cent currently to 80 per cent by 2017, and reduce the gender gap from 21 per cent at present to 10 per cent, eventually.

As the PM described: “Female literacy in the social sector and infrastructure development in the economic sector are critical to India’s higher and sustainable growth. So did the feat of Roshni, the once-poor, uneducated woman from Siloti village of Haryana, who battled parochial mindsets to become the first woman in her area to get educated.

Literacy helped her become a school librarian, seek Rs 20,000 compensation for losing the left arm in a thresher accident on the farms, and educate other women in the village. Today she was at Vigyan Bhavan to speak of how literacy had made her an equal partner in Siloti’s growth-a point the PM hammered in his speech to drive home the significance of education.

He expressed concerns that one-third of India’s population and half of its women did not know how to read or write, and admitted, “Literacy, especially female literacy, is central to the success of all our welfare programmes for the aam aadmi. In our efforts to remove poverty, hunger and disease, education is a valuable instrument; literacy its first step.”

The reconstituted mission will focus on women, who have 54 per cent literacy rate against 75 per cent in males. Terming the mission as UPA’s first step towards fulfillment of the promise (of female literacy) made in the President’s address earlier this year, the PM said resources would not be a constraint in the urge to “educate all”.

“Sakshar Bharat reaffirms our national commitment to literacy,” he said, seeking the involvement of community and panchayati raj institutions in the implementation of mission goals. He asked the HRD ministry to innovate strategies for imparting “sustainable literacy to non literates.”

The mission in fact makes a welcome departure from the past by making PRIs the fulcrum of literacy programmes. “Sakshar Bharat would be a national enterprise where a grand alliance will work to achieve goals. We will also rope in NGOs. Central and state governments would be mere facilitators in the process; communities would be in charge,” HRD minister Kapil Sibal said while introducing the mission on the day he completed 100 days in office.

The mission seeks to put learners in touch with their surroundings, hone their life skills, tell them of their arts, crafts and culture and impart them continuing education, which was previously absent. The mammoth task would require 10 million teachers (only matriculates and above to be recruited) three million managers, 70 lakh literacy centres and 210 million books.