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Tribune Special New Delhi, September 3
As many as 46.33 lakh new learners — out of the targeted 60 lakh who attended classes for a year — actually came forward to take the functional literacy test and get rated for reading, writing and numeracy. Of these, a whopping 70 per cent (32, 61, 844) passed with Grades A and B reflecting reasonable skills. The rest, who got Grade C, pointing to the need for improvement, also went home with grade sheets. For the first time in the history of adult literacy programmes in India, every learner received a certificate, including those who finished last. Most heartening is the fact that 82 per cent literacy has been reported among the women neo literates who were assessed as against 18 per cent literacy among men. A 75-year-old woman from Tamil Nadu has emerged as the oldest student of the Sakshar Bharat Mission, which will turn two this September 8 — a day the government has planned a success show which will be presided over by the President. The mission — a variant of the old National Adult Literacy Mission (NLM) which had started in 1988 — has produced impressive results in just two years by imparting literacy to 32 lakh first-time learners. This is a magic figure considering NLM, in 21 years of operation, educated only 12.7 million adults. Sakshar Bharat aims to make 70 million adults (of them 60 million women) literate in seven years across 410 districts of rural India. The results of the first assessment have proved that the target is achievable. The best part of the process has been the excitement it has generated among the new learners, who have been drawn into adult literacy classes by the government’s gesture of awarding pass certificates stamped jointly by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and the HRD Ministry. “For the first time ever, learners have been assessed and graded. Hitherto, only district and block level assessments used to happen. Adults feel encouraged when they go home with grade sheets even if they have attained the last Grade C,” said SK Prasad of the NIOS, which conducted the assessment. The assessment happened twice -- first as a pilot in 17 states with 5,18,585 candidates (3,24,317 women) across 20,643 centres on August 20, 2010. Of these, 3,34,507 passed, with male-female literacy rates being equal at 65 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively. On March 6 this year, a national-level assessment was done with 41,14,814 learners taking the test. Among them, 34,16,845 candidates were women; 24,03,406 of them cleared the test. Of the 6,97,969 men who appeared, 5,23,931 passed. The female-male adult literacy rates, by the end of the assessment, stood at 82.10 per cent and 17.90 per cent, respectively. The assessment took place in 13 states. Tamil Nadu showed 100 per cent literacy among the candidates assessed, while Andhra Pradesh posted the lowest adult literacy percentage of 51.52. The national assessment also covered Manipur, Bihar, Karnataka, Sikkim, Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Himachal, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Jharkhand. Himachal reported 70.73 per cent overall literacy. Punjab and Haryana were not covered as Punjab entered the mission very recently and will be assessed later while Haryana failed to implement the same in the lone Karnal district where the project was sanctioned.
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