Gift of Education

Vandana Kumari Jena
The people who have the gift of education take many things for granted. The ability to read the written word is one of them. We delve into the world of Rabindranath Tagore and Premchand, Tolstoy and Chekhov, Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy with joy. We wield the pen with ease. We speak in public foray with compelling authority, secure in the knowledge that we will be heard. We use laptops and palmtops with panache, surf the internet everyday, and bask in the knowledge that we are a part of the global village.

The people who have the gift of education take many things for granted. The ability to read the written word is one of them. We delve into the world of Rabindranath Tagore and Premchand, Tolstoy and Chekhov, Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy with joy. We wield the pen with ease. We speak in public foray with compelling authority, secure in the knowledge that we will be heard. We use laptops and palmtops with panache, surf the internet everyday, and bask in the knowledge that we are a part of the global village.

 In our selfish zest to live our own life, we forget that there is another world out there.  We do not see the tears in the eyes of the young girl who waits in vain, to walk besides her brother to school one day. We fail to perceive the sheer desperation in the eyes of the newly elected non literate sarpanch as she sees a pile of applications awaiting her. We   ignore the suppressed anger in the eyes of the illiterate woman who knows that she has been cheated by the contractor but can do little about it. We ignore the wistful look on the face of the unlettered woman who receives a letter from her husband but is unable to read it on her own.

 The illiterates in India, numbering 304 million as per the 2001 Census, are a staggeringly large number. We must make our targeted learners functionally literate in order to reach our national goal of attaining a sustainable threshold level of 75 per cent literacy by 2007. There is need to rethink the old strategies and be innovative while seeking new ones.  The challenge before us is to bring back into the literacy fold the `residual illiterates’   who could not be motivated to join the campaign, or who chose to opt out. They are the ones who shoot back, “Literacy for what?” leaving us searching for answers.

There is another daunting challenge before us- to meet the demands of the 120 million neoliterates, who have transited into continuing education and now yearn for opportunities for lifelong learning. Having been taught that the written word is a window to the world, they are thirsting for more.   Situated on the lowest rung, they long to climb up the educational ladder.  They hope that the acquisition of literacy skills would lead them to new opportunities and better means of livelihood.  They have expectations that literacy would improve their quality of life. The real challenge lies in balancing the needs of the illiterates and the aspirations of the neoliterates, by arriving at and implementing the best strategies that can satisfy the needs of both.

 Literacy districts throw up not one, but many solutions. Literacy programmes may be cash strapped, but it is the variety of perceptions, experiences and solutions they offer which makes them so enriching.  Human imagination knows no bounds and when it soars the sky can be the limit.  States and districts in India are no longer at a loss for answers.  The question `Literacy for what?’ has been answered in a variety of ways.   Literacy for lifelong learning, for livelihood and for empowerment are some of them.  There are states that have linked literacy with livelihood and launched an `earn and learn’ programme for self help groups.  Others have enmeshed literacy with   skill development activities, and transformed the `campaign mode’ into a `camp mode,’ to kick start the process of literacy in an accelerated mode. Districts have addressed the problem of the shortage of volunteer teachers by using an army of student volunteers.    Innovative preraks have brought not just `mobile libraries’ but also `mobile training centres’ to the doorsteps of the neoliterates. The literacy wall, providing details about the of the village’s developmental activities, is a district’s answer to the villagers right to information. Computer based literacy is the attempt of the states to bridge the digital divide.

 Each district is unique in terms of its history and geography; nevertheless   it could provide a role model that may be replicated. If Ernakulam had not shown the way, the India’s literacy landscape may have been quite different.  All States and Districts, State Resource Centres and Jan Shiskhan Sansthans have done different things, and done them differently. We can learn from all of them. The path towards the achievement of full literacy is strewn with difficulties, the path to the creation of a learning society is more so. But it is also paved with limitless optimism, unbounded zeal, immeasurable   expectations and the wealth of past experience. And the results of these efforts, rich with hard work and hope, are infinitely rewarding and give us the strength to keep striving.
                                   
 The author is Director General, National Literacy Mission, Ministry of HRD