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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Should Bihar celebrate? by Sreelatha Menon

The only bright spot in the latest Census, 2011, was the data on literacy. It seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, one would imagine that walking into the forests of Jharkhand, the first man you meet will know how to read and write fluently in Hindi or the local dialect.

Or, Bihar which will receive a trophy from the President for achieving the highest growth in literacy rate for the decade and the highest growth in female literacy, too, would have most men and women in villages reading and writing in Hindi. Also, probably, people writing their demands for work in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) without any help, and even applying for information under the Right to Information Act! With the progress made in literacy rates, such things should be possible.

But, the literacy numbers in the Census are literacy among the population aged above seven years. It does not breathe a word about adult literacy, which is, or the lack of it, is the root cause for most miseries in the country.

Only data on literacy of the population above 15 years can capture adult literacy, which is the oxygen required for the people at the bottom of the pyramid.

The country, which does not even have a literacy programme of the scale and importance of NREGA, cannot be boasting decade after decade of such rapid growth in literacy rates. So, the Census figures tell the truth, but not the whole truth.

The truth is that 80.33 per cent of the population above seven years is literate. This includes kids going to school. It gives a flattering picture about education programmes funded by the centre, or the impact of free bicycles and mid-day meals on the enrolment numbers. It does not capture the outcome of attempts by states to encourage adults to come and learn to read, write, open bank accounts, sign cheques, withdraw cash and so on.

In Bihar, the achievement has not been little. The literacy rate has grown from 47 per cent in Census, 2001, to 63 per cent in this Census, which remains the lowest in the country.

Educationist Vinod Raina who is a part of the Central Advisory Board on Education in the human resource development ministry and the education coordinator of a grassroot network called Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, says the literacy data is useless unless the desegregated data for 15 plus years is found.

It just conceals the real size of illiteracy and absence of any effort at adult literacy, he says. Statistician Ashish Bose agrees and dismisses the literacy data as inflated and a mere ‘propaganda’.

Raina says the National Literacy Mission is as good as dead, despite the fact that in the 11th Plan, along with Rs 4,000 crore given, it got a new logo and a name — Sakshar Bharat. What was not given was a strategy that could take the written word to the last man. All it had in the last five years, according to Raina, were conferences and seminars, but no plan of action for teaching.

He says adult literacy cannot be done through any institutional mechanism. It needs to be done through volunteers, the way it was done between 1991 and 2000. In 1990-2001, 12 million volunteers played a role in teaching adults. But this is not part of the official strategy anymore, says Raina.

The veiling of the scale of adult illiteracy in the country seems to be a conscious attempt, as the literacy awards for states are given by none else than the National Literacy Mission Authority whose mission is to provide adult literacy. So, despite the Census data, the nation is clueless as to how many illiterates learned to read and write in the last decade.