National Literacy Mission Programme

The National Literacy Mission Programme is an Indian programme which aims to make 80
million adults in the age group of 15 - 35 literate over an eighty year period. By "Literacy", the
NLM means not only learning how to read, write and count but also helping people
become aware of why they are deprived and helping them move towards change.

About National Literacy Mission

National Literacy Mission (NLM) was set up by the government of India on 5 May 1988 with an
aim to eradicate illiteracy in the country by imparting functional literacy to non-literates. Thus,
National Literacy Mission was established not only to make everybody just self reliant in the
three Rs — reading, writing and arithmetic — but also to make them aware of the development
issues affecting the society. The target group of NLM is people between the age of 15 and 35.
National Literate Mission works under the guidance of National Literacy Mission Authority, an
independent wing of Ministry of Human Resources and Development.

The National Literacy Mission has two flagship programmes- Total literacy programmes and
Post literacy Programme through which it gives shape to its aims. But with the revitalization of
National Literacy Mission Programme on 30 September 1999, both the campaigns have come
under one single project: 'Literacy Campaigns an Operation Restoration'.

The NLM initiated its first successful literacy campaign in Kottayam city of Kerala followed by
Ernakulam district of the same state. Till November 2002, 596 districts out of the total 600
districts of the country had been covered up by the National Literacy Mission under the total
literacy campaign programme. Out of which, 191 was in the post literacy phase and 238 in the
continuing education phase.

The initiation of total literacy campaigns by the National Literacy Mission has achieved due
recognitions also. The UN agency-UNESCO in year 1999 conferred upon it UNESCO Noma
Literacy Prize. It also received appreciation of the jury for the teaching learning material
produced by it and for the voice raised by it to make quality primary education in schools.

Awards and Assistances

The National Literacy Mission in collaboration with the United Nations Agency- UNESCO,
confer every year 'NLM- UNESCO' award on the universities, social science research institutions
recognised by ICSSR, State resource centres and Jan Shikshan Sansthans, for their outstanding
contribution in the field of research and innovation (innovative training, materials and practices)
pertaining to literacy, adult and continuing education and extension programmes.
The award, which carries a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 and a citation, is given so that the
institutions working in the field of literacy and adult education are encouraged to keep up their
good work.

Ancillary Information
In achieving its objective of 100 percent literacy, the National Literacy Mission takes the help of
various NGOs existing across the country. For taking active promotional role in the literacy
movement, NGOs are provided financial assistance.

The National Literacy Mission also empowers women of the country by including them into their
total literacy campaigns. If one goes by the 2001 census, then it will become clear that
percentage of female literacy in the country is 54.16. The literacy campaigns undertaken by
NLM not only guides females on how to read and write but also make them aware of the various
social issues in the society. Through education earned in campaigns by NLM, females find
themselves tremendously confident. They run their family in a better way and have a greater say
in the family matters.

Funds for Literacy campaigns

For undertaking literacy campaigns across various districts of the country, NLM release funds
for each district. While the ratio between centre and state is 2:1, it is 4 : 1 for the tribal sub plan
districts across the country.

Working of National Literacy Mission

In a country where 40% of the people are illiterate, The NLM helps them to become literate with
the support of literate people - particularly student volunteers.

From the news:

I
New Delhi, Aug 21(ANI): The Government on Friday said that the National Literacy Mission is
being recast, so that, 80 per cent coverage of the mission is of women, whose literacy rate at
present is at an unacceptable level of 54 per cent.

Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal said this while chairing the 11th
Meeting of the National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA) here on Friday.
Sibal informed NLMA members that while the total budgetary support during the last three plans
for the programme was Rs. 2862.95 crore, the outlay for the 11th plan was at a much higher level
of Rs.6000 crore.

Sibal said that the Mission would be run in active participation with the State Governments
unlike in the past when the mission was run directly from the centre through the different
implementation agencies at the district level.

He also said that Adult Education Centres would be set up at the Gram Panchayat, which will be
the unit for implementation of the programme.

He also informed that the Panchayat would work in tandem with the community to implement
the programme.

Sibal further highlighted that a Curriculum Framework for Adult Literacy will be developed with
adequate reflection of locally relevant issues and aspects.

He pointed out that unlike in the past, each learner will be tagged and tracked for the learning
achievement. Besides an efficient MIS system, concurrent monitoring systems will be put in
place for field validation.

Thirty two of the forty four members of the NLMA participated in the meeting, which passed the
agenda put before it.

Union Minister for Rural Development C.P. Joshi, Minister of State for Human Resource
Development D. Purandeswari, Secretary for Department of School Education and Literacy
Anshu Vaish, were among those present in the meeting. (ANI)

II

Four government banks to assist India's

literacy mission
New Delhi, Nov 26: Four public sector banks - State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank,
Union Bank of India, and Indian Bank - Thursday signed an agreement with the human
resource development ministry to push the implementation of the government's new Rs.60
billion National Literacy Mission.

The agreement aims at transparency, delivery and online monitoring of "just-

in-time fund flow and proper utilisation of the Sakshar Bharat (Literate India) fund".

"We have learnt from our past experience and wanted to bring in transparency in the new
mission. Coming together with banks will help us ensure a hassle free flow of funds to the
implementing agencies up to the gram panchayats," Minister of State for Human Resource
Development D. Purandeswari said.

A new mission to make 70 million adults - most of them women - of 365 underdeveloped
districts literate was launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in September. The human
resource development ministry aims to spend Rs.60 billion on this.

Monetary expenditure plans from 167 districts of 19 states have already been received by the
ministry. National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA) chief J.S. Raju said government will use
the core banking system of these banks.

The unique feature of the proposed fund flow mechanism envisages a single bank account for
each state, empowering the districts, blocks and gram panchayats to issue cheques and monitor
spending.

"Money laundering and corruption will be curbed. A transparent system like this will help
achieve success in this mega plan on literacy," Ajay Mishra, general manager of Punjab National
Bank, told IANS.

The four banks would provide customized cheque books to all the implementing agencies of the
mission and assure them of cash flow for a certain period of time.

III

Sakshar Bharat Mission launched to curb

illiteracy
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 1:31:58 PM by ANI ( 2 comments )

New Delhi, Sep. 8 (ANI): With the objective of reducing illiteracy, especially among women,
the Government on Tuesday launched the Sakshar Bharat Mission on the occasion of
International Literacy Day.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said that although good progress has been made to make
India literate, a third of the population continues to remain illiterate and half of the women
cannot read or write.

He said that the number of illiterate people in the country is the highest in the world.

Singh said that empowering disadvantaged groups with literacy is a big challenge for his
government.
He expressed hope that the Saakshar Bharat Mission will involve the community, Panchayati Raj
Institutions and women self help groups in its endeavour.

Outlining a number of progressive programmes and laws enacted by the government to empower
the Aam Aadmi, Dr Singh said that literacy is central to the success of all these programmes.

Reiterating the government’s commitment to provide quality education to every child in the
country, Dr Singh said that resources would not be a constraint in this effort.

The objective of this new flagship programme of the government is to provide functional literacy
to the adults over 15 years of age.

It aims to achieve 100 percent literacy in 365 low literacy districts where the adult female
literacy rate is 50 percent less as per the 2001 census.

Thirty-three districts affected with left wing extremism will be covered under the programme.

Ten percent of the budget of the programme will be spend in northeastern region.

The goals of the programme are to achieve the 80 percent literacy by making seven crore people
literate, reduce gender disparity and minimize regional disparities. (ANI)

IV

20 years on, mission to literacy still short of

target (Special)
Monday, May 05, 2008 9:09:10 AM by admin ( Leave a comment )

By Sanjay Singh
New Delhi, May 5 (IANS) Twenty years after its launch, the National Literacy Mission (NLM)
is still struggling to meet its objective. It is 10 percent short of the literacy rate target and has
been unable to bridge the gender literacy gap. The mission was launched on May 5, 1988,
targeted to attain 75 percent literacy by 2007. But the literacy rate at present stands at 65 percent.
Supposed to bring down the gender gap in literacy to 10 percent by 2007, the mission has failed
to do so.

The male-female gender gap stands at over 21 percent now. The present male literacy is 75.85
percent, while it is 54.16 percent for females, according to a senior government official.

Unesco, which assists the mission, had in a report last year criticised the way the NLM was
progressing, stating that “India was nowhere in terms of eradicating illiteracy”.
An embarrassed Indian government went in for damage control, but failed to convince the world
community. It declared recently that it would achieve complete literacy by 2015.

The government has earmarked a whopping Rs.850 billion ($21 billion) - five times the budget
allocated earlier - for the education sector in the 11th Five Year Plan, which ends in 2012. A
huge fund has been kept aside for success of the mission, said a source.

A concerned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, addressing a National Conference on Save the
Girl Child here on April 28, urged that the NLM be reoriented to focus on female literacy.

Human resource development (HRD) ministry officials admitted that the failure of states to
implement the NLM has forced the government to set another target - to attain 80 percent
literacy rate by the end of 2012, and complete literacy three years later - by 2015.

The government feels a wrong impression has been created about the failure of the mission. A.K.
Rath, secretary (secondary education and literacy) in the HRD ministry, said the government
would achieve its target of complete literacy by 2015.

He said that Unesco had created a hype based on the feedback it received from NGOs, which the
government disapproves.

Renowned educationist Professor Yashpal also questioned the credibility of the Unesco report.
“Who are they (Unesco) to tell us? They aren’t aware of the ground situation and realities of our
country,” he said.

He hoped that the Mission would complete its new target of complete literacy by 2015. “The
government is committed to eradicating illiteracy. It is its top agenda. All the agencies are being
put to work to ensure that the literacy target is met on time,” said Yashpal.

But the government’s very own National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) - India’s official
census agency - has pointed to the sluggish rate of literacy.

Nearly 70 percent of the country’s illiterate population belong to the eight states of Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and
Karnataka.

These states have not shown any major improvement in the government’s flagship programmes,
the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Education for All), for universalisation of elementary education in a
time bound manner, and the National Literacy Mission, officials said.

India and its Literacy Mission

 V. Mohan Rao writes: September 8th of every
year is observed as International Literacy Day. India has put its Literacy Mission high on agenda
with the government initiating a number of measures including the adoption of the Right of
Children to Free and Compulsory Education, to achieve higher literacy rate in the country. The
measures also include the recasting of the National Literacy Mission to focus on literacy of
women, reduction in the dropout rate of children at school levels and introduction of Public-
Private Participation in the school education. The Human Resource Development Ministry has
set a target of achieving 80 per cent literacy for women by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan
and have recast the National Literacy Mission to National Women’s Literacy Mission to provide
a thrust to it. With its new slogan, Literate India, the Mission will be launched soon in about 365
districts in the country, where the literacy rate is below 50 per cent. The Government is also
trying to reduce the gap between literacy levels of men and women at All India level, which is 21
per cent at present. Through this Mission, the Government is planning to educate 70 million
adults, out of which 60 million would be women. The Centre has also decided to set up 6,000
high quality model schools at the block level, at the rate of one school per block, as benchmarks
of excellence. The first phase of the scheme to set up 2,500 Model Schools in Educationally
Backward Blocks (EBBs) under the State Governments was launched in November 2008.
Free and Compulsory Education for Children Bill, 2009
Recently, the Government has adopted the Right to Free and Compulsory Education for Children
Bill 2009. It provides that every child in the age group of six to fourteen shall have the right to
free and compulsory education in a neighborhood school till completion of elementary
education. The measure will lead to significant reform in the elementary education system
besides ensuring universalisation of elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality.
The measure provides that appropriate government and the local authority will establish
elementary schools in such area or limits of neighbourhood as may be prescribed. The Bill’s
enactment was also a part of the UPA Government’s agenda during its first 100 days of
governance.
Measures to reduce Illiteracy
As per UNESCO’S Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006, the number of illiterates
in the population aged 15 plus was estimated to be 771 million in the world, out of which 267
million are in India. The Centre has taken several steps to improve the literacy scenario in the
country. They include renewed focus on low literacy areas with special emphasis on female,
Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes and minorities, enhanced budget allocation for adult
education and significant enhancement in access and quality of elementary education to reduce
the influx into the pool of adult illiterate population. At present, the Total Literacy Campaign
(TLC) is in progress in 95 districts of the country. About 127.45 million persons in the country
have been made literate since the launching of the National Literacy Mission in 1988 till 2008-
09.
Enrolment Of Children at Primary And Secondary Levels
The Government has adopted a multi-pronged approach for improving the enrolment of children
at primary level and their retention. The Gross Enrolment Ratio at the primary level was 111.24
in 2006-07 and the drop out rate for that level has decreased from 31.5 per cent in 2003-04 to
25.43 per cent in 2006-07. The National Programme of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), aimed at
achieving Universal Elementary Education, launched in 2001, provides for, among other things,
opening of new schools, strengthening of school infrastructure, inclusive education for children
with special needs. The Government has allocated Rs.71,000 crore as its share during the 11th
Plan. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme is supported by the National Programme of Mid
Day Meal scheme in schools. At the secondary level, various schemes like Rashtriya Madhyamik
Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in secondary
schools, scholarship for girls have been started. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher
educations is estimated to be about 12.4 per cent as compared to estimated world average of 26
per cent. In order to achieve the targeted GER of an additional five per cent by the end of 11th
Plan, a substantial increase in plan allocation has been made for the expansion of higher
education, by way of setting up of institutions such as Central Universities in uncovered states.
The Government also plans to increase the GER to 21 per cent by the end of 12th Five Year Plan
period. The GER of Scheduled Tribe students has increased from 86.06 per cent in 2003-04 to
109.48 per cent at the elementary level and the dropout rate has reduced in the same period from
70.05 per cent to 62.54 per cent.
Public Spending on Education
The Government has accorded very high importance to the education sector during the 11th Plan.
An allocation of Rs.2,69,873 crore has been made to the Human Resource Development
Ministry. The allocation includes Rs.1,84,930 crore for the Department of School Education and
Literacy. This constitutes 19.4 per cent of the total 11th Plan allocation compared to 7.7 per cent
in the 10th Plan. This is a very substantial effort on the part of the Central Government towards
raising the public spending on education towards the goal of 6 per cent of GDP. The overall
progress towards this goal will however, also depend on the efforts by the State Governments.
The Government favours active support and involvement of private sector participation for
funding and management of educational institutions subject to reasonable surplus earned and the
same being ploughed back for development of institutions. The 11th Plan document as approved
by the National Development Council, also mentions the need to explore private sector initiatives
and various forms of Public Private Partnerships in the education sector. A proposal for setting
up of 20 new Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) in various parts of the country
under Public-Private-Participation (PPP) mode is also under consideration of the government.
Empowerment of Women in Education
The National Policy on Education (NPE) of 1986, as modified in 1992 provides that education
will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of woman. The removal of illiteracy among
women and obstacles inhibiting their access to, and retention in, elementary education will
receive overriding priority through the provision of special support services and effective
monitoring. The University Grants Commission (UGC) also implements various schemes for
educational empowerment of women like Indira Gandhi Scholarships for single girl child for
pursuing higher and technical education, construction of women’s hostels, women’s study
centers in universities for gender studies and policies in respect of empowerment of women and
their role in the society. The positive impact of above schemes has resulted in increased
enrolment of girls, decrease in dropout rates of girls, improved learning achievement level of
girls/women and the overall reduction in gender gaps.
International Scenario
Despite many and varied efforts, literacy remains an elusive target globally. About 776 million
adults lack minimum literacy skills which means that one in five adults is still not literate; 75
million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out. This year’s
International Literacy Day puts the spotlight on the empowering role of literacy and its
importance for participation, citizenship and social development. Literacy and Empowerment is
the theme for the 2009-10 biennium of the United Nations Literacy Decade.

VI

The Press Trust of India Ltd.; January 13, 2011 ; 324 words ... ... inmates, the
Tihar Prison will introduce the National Literacy Mission Programme in all its jails.
"We are introducing the National Literacy Mission Programme in all our jails. This
is being done ...