National Literacy Mission

The Census 2001 provisional reports indicate that India has made significant progress in the field
of literacy during the decade since the previous census in 1991.The literacy rate in 2001 has been
recorded at 64.84% as against 52.21% in 1991.The 12.63 percentage points increase in the literacy rate
during the period is the highest increase in any decade. Also for the first time there is a decline in the
absolute number of non-literates during the past 10 years. The total number of non literates has come
down from 328 million in 1991 to 304 million in 2001.During 1991-2000, the population in 7+ age group
increased by 176 million while 201 million additional persons became literate during that period. Out of
864 million people above the age of 7 years, 560 million are now literates. Three-fourths of our male
population and more than half of the female population are literate. This indeed is an encouraging
indicator for us to speed up our march towards the goal of achieving a sustainable threshold literacy rate
of 75% by 2007. The Census 2001 provisional figures also indicate that the efforts of the nation during
the past decade to remove the scourge of illiteracy have not gone in vain. The eradication of illiteracy
from a vast country like India beset by several social and economic hurdles is not an easy task. Realizing
the National Literacy Mission to impart a new sense of urgency and seriousness to adult education. After
the success of the areas specific, time bound voluntary based campaign approach first in Kottayam city
and then in Ernakulum district in Kerala in 1990, the National Literacy Mission had accepted the literacy
campaigns as the dominant strategy for eradication of illiteracy.
The National Literacy Mission (NLM) is a nationwide program started by Government of India in
1988. It aims to educate 80 million adults in the age group of 15 - 35 year. By "literacy", the NLM means
not only learning how to read, write and count but also helping people understand why they are deprived
and helping them move towards change. The National Literacy Mission was revitalized with the approval
of the Union Government on 30th September 1999. The Mission's goal is to attain total literacy i.e. a
sustainable threshold literacy rate of 75% by 2007.The Mission seeks to achieve this by imparting
functional literacy to non-literates in the 15-35 age group. To tackle the problem of residual illiteracy,
now it has been decided to adopt an integrated approach to Total Literacy Campaigns(TLC) and Post
Literacy Programme. This means the basic literacy campaigns and post literacy programmes will be
implemented under one literacy project called 'Literacy Campaigns an Operation Restoration' to achieve
continuity, efficiency and convergence and to minimize unnecessary time lag between the two. Post are
treated only as a preparatory phase for launching Continuing Education with the ultimate aim of creating
a learning society.
Objectives and goals: The goals of the National Literacy Mission is to attain full literacy, i.e., a
sustainable threshold level of 75 percent by 2007.The mission seeks to achieve this goal by imparting
functional literacy to non-literates in the 15-35 age group. This age group has been the focus of attention
because they are in the productive and reproductive period of life. The total literacy campaign offers them
a second’s chance, in case they missed the opportunity or were denied access to mainstream formal
education has been enlarged to include people in the age group 9 to 14 years, in areas not covered by the
non-formal education programme, to ensure that the benefits of TLCs are made available to out-of-school
children as well. Special care is taken to bring disadvantaged groups like women, scheduled castes and
tribes and backward classes into the programme. The basic objective is to create a generation, which will
ensure that their children are educated, to realize the dream of Education for All. In quantitative terms, the
Mission seeks to impart functional literacy to all non-literate persons in 15-35 age groups. In qualitative
terms, functional literacy implies:
1. Self-reliance in 3 R's.
2. Becoming aware of the causes of deprivation and moving towards amelioration of their condition
by participating in the process of development.
3. Skill improvement to improve economic status and general well being.
4. Imbibing values of national integration, conservation of environment, women's equality and
observance of small family norms etc.
Goals :
1. Target for XIth plan-85% Literacy rate.
2. Reduction in gender gap in literacy to 10%.
3. Reduction of regional, social and gender disparities.
4. Use of ICT for Literacy.
5. New models of Continuing Education.
Eradication of illiteracy from a nation that is set to become the most populated in the world is by
no means easy. This was realized in the eighties and the National Literacy Mission came into being to
impart a new sense of urgency and seriousness to adult education. As we set foot in to the new
millennium, it gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the efforts we have been making and also to learn
from our failures so that we can achieve our target of a sustainable, threshold level of literacy. It is time to
assess ongoing programmes and seek new horizons. The literacy movement has its credit, several
achievements it can be proud of:
· Literacy Campaigns have been launched in 597 districts, out of which 174 districts are in Post Literacy
programmes and 328 districts in continuing education phase.
· Literacy projects sanctioned so far under all the schemes of NLM are estimated to cover more than 150
million neo-literates.
· 125.6 million have already been made literate under all programs of NLM.
· 60% learners are female and 40% are male.
· 23% learners belong to Scheduled Caste and 12% belong to Scheduled Tribes.
· The cumulative number of literary volunteers mobilized since the launching of literacy campaigns is
about 15 million.
One of the great strengths of the adult education programme has been the involvement of women.
As much as 60% of participants in India are female. Programmes have provided illiterate adult women
who have been denied access to formal schooling with great opportunity for reading, writing, increasing
awareness levels and skills training. Literacy and adult education campaigns have actively promoted
gender equity and have sought to empower them as to decision-making about themselves, their families
and their communities. India recorded heightened social awareness regarding the importance of education
both for themselves as well as for their children. The biggest achievement of the adult education
movement has been its impact on girl’s education. The confidence of the girls as they perform their
scholastic and extracurricular roles is the result of the awareness among neo-literate parents that girls
need to be educated and outgoing. The need to provide equal opportunity to both girls and boys has also
had the effect of generating greater demand for the quantity and quality of primary schooling. This major
strain running through the programmes has played a significant role in improving the status of women
within their own families. Whereas, traditionally women in India had little say in family decision-making,
they, through participation, have begun to express their newly found self-belief in having a say both
within and without the family. The effect of Adult Education on health and hygiene are indeed most
significant. Raising the functional literacy level of a community leads to a demonstrable decline in
fertility and infant mortality rates. Adult education has helped spread knowledge about health care and
nutrition, thereby enabling mothers to keep their families in better health and to care better for their
children. Adult education is therefore indispensable as it supplements the efforts to enhance and sustain
literacy levels through formal education. It was, therefore, considered necessary to continue the NLM
during the XI Plan period. While acknowledging, in principle, the need for continuing and strengthening
further the efforts to promote Adult Education, the Planning Commission agreed to the continuance of
NLM during the XIth Plan provided it was appraised de novo and modified suitably to meet the
contemporary challenges. The programme was accordingly subjected to extensive in-house and external
review and evaluation. This in-depth appraisal had revealed certain inadequacies in the design,
architecture and mode of implementation of the programme, most conspicuous being, non-viability of a
single pan Indian solution, limitations of voluntary approach, limited involvement of the State
Governments in the programme, lack of convergence, weak management and supervisory structures, lack
of community participation, poor monitoring and inadequate funding. Meanwhile, the Government
announced that literacy would be its key programme instrument for emancipation and empowerment of
women. Efforts of the Government to give impetus to school education, health, nutrition, skill
development and women empowerment in general are impeded by the continuance of female illiteracy.
Government expects increase in female literacy to become a force multiplier for all other social
development programmes. However, this is only the instrumental value of female literacy. Its intrinsic
value is in emancipating the Indian woman through the creation of critical consciousness to take charge of
her environment where she faces multiple deprivations and disabilities on the basis of class, caste and
gender. In the context of Government’s overall policy aimed at empowerment of women and in
recognition of the fact that literacy, especially female literacy, is a prerequisite to socio-economic
development, it was considered imperative that the NLM, as a programme instrument, be recast with an
enhanced focus on female literacy. It is also felt that such a repositioning of the mission would have a
very positive impact on re-energizing the literacy movement that, after an initial decade of spirited social
mobilization, had waned over two decades of its operation.