 |
|
Ex-General battles
illiteracy with PC
If a project by premier Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) can find the right partners, and hit critical mass, then this large section could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards. Maybe even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time. Retired Major General B G Shively’s recent mission to the Goa port town of Vasco da Gama saw him take on an unusual enemy—illiteracy. It also took to India’s smallest state an innovative campaign that brings enticingly near the dream of making India literate. Says Pune-based Shively: "Every adult has inborn qualities (and intelligence). You only have to activate it." This Armyman, now consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services’ literacy plan, suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers. Quite a lot of work has already been done by TCS in Andhra Pradesh, with Telugu. Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Bengali are the other languages worked on. Gujarati is shaping up. What’s more, there’s an added bonus: India could become functionally literate in just three to four years time, if—and this is a big if— this method is vigorously implemented. How does it work? Simple. The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them. Some rules: don’t make an adult sit for tests. Don’t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved acts as a major disincentive. Reading skills are most important. Adults can’t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it. "One-third of our population — old, young and adults — are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern," says Shively. Growing at 1.3 per cent per annum roughly, literacy is creeping in just too slowly to make a difference for India’s efficiency. That’s where, says TCS, computers come in. Software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets. In the Goa Shipyard Limited, one of India’s military-run building centres, the concept recently drew interest. Sixty workers signed-up to learn the most important of the 3 Rs. Andhra is however the state where this project has made the most progress. "There’s almost nothing the teacher has to speak. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 classes (one-hour) classes in a day, without getting tired. You don’t need a trained teacher (because of the software)," says Shively. In 40-hours flat, an illiterate could be turned into a ‘functional literate’, claims the major-general. This would enable one to read simple newspaper headlines, check out bus directions, read signboards and the like. Hopefully, such skills could be deepened over time. Their ideas are put out on the site, www.tataliteracy.com, and the TCS is claiming a good response even from a few industrial groups wanting to gift their workers with literacy. To avoid reinventing
the wheel, the TCS — which sees this venture as part of its
philanthropic So what happens if
literacy comes in 40 hours, instead of 200? Drop-out rates are low. It
wouldn’t take India another 20-25 years to touch 90% literacy (three
to four years are enough, says TCS), and the ‘demotivating factors’
are knocked off. Trained teachers are no longer the bottleneck. |
||||||
 |
||||||
WHAT
do you do with a population of close to 300 million illiterates, who can
speak their native languages, but cannot read or write in them? Do we
see them merely as empty stomachs and a burden on the nation? Or, is
this an untapped potential, which can be converted into 600 million
useful hands?