Every year, we celebrate the International literacy Day to take stock of what we have progressed, what are the potential challenges that we need to overcome and what should be our strategy to work on it further.
But since independence, very few States have shown the sign of rapid development and progress in the field of literacy. Odisha ranks 25th in literacy rate ranking among the States of India with literacy rate of 72.9 per cent. According to the census of 2011, the number of literates in Odisha is 2.67 crore out of which 2.13 crore are recorded only in rural areas. The literacy rate of 2011 census is 72.9 per cent which is less than the national average. Districts like Nabarangpur have not yet even crossed 44 per cent. The literacy rates for males and females in SC and ST community have also been below 60 per cent. The Government of Odisha has also taken several remedial steps to increase the literacy rate.
India is a fast runner in terms of provisioning, implementing and prioritising actions to universalize education and have full literacy nation but as per the report of UNESCO 2015, it reveals that in terms of absolute numbers, India with 28.7 crore illiterates was the country with largest number of adults without basic literacy skills in 2010-11 compared to 30.4 crore illiterates as 2000-2001.
Our country still stands in 61st position in the literacy rate in whole world with 74.04 per cent of national literacy rate.
The current year’s theme of the day “Reading the past, writing the future” takes us back where literacy and principles of educational attainment were seen as a productive effort of nurturing values, cultural identity and bringing transformation. The past shows us the view of what the nation did, present shows us what a nation is doing and future shows us what the nation would do. If India wants its future to have glorious accounts, then it needs to make its present glorious. The creation of glorious accounts needs provisions for enhancing the literacy rate that may prove as a powerful tool towards bring social equity, socio-cultural primacy and empowerment.
The Government of India has implemented several provisions and schemes making our country where we can have full literacy. Schemes like National literacy Mission Programme (1988) aims to educate 80 million people; Saakshar Bharat (September, 2009) focuses on adult education, who have crossed the formal age of education and yet are unable to complete it; Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Act (2009) rooted for compulsory education for children aged between 6-14 years; Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) aims at funding higher education by helping the central universities and Government aided colleges.
We always emphasize on the quantitative outcomes on the achievement of literacy but literacy should not be considered only as a means to ability of writing and reading but also it should be used as a powerful tool to empower disadvantaged and less privileged section of the society through providing educational opportunities.
There are several courses of actions and initiatives can be taken to ensure that all people of our country are literate and contributing to the overall growth and development of the nation. Various studies have shown that children’s motivation and achievement improve when their parents are involved in their process of education process. There are many ways through which we can encourage literacy training. We can encourage our child to read a variety of texts such as magazines, newspapers, novels etc. We can talk about things that we have read that was amusing, interesting or useful. We need to discuss new or unusual phrases or words and explaining this through print and electronic dictionaries. We can also facilitate playing games that develop knowledge and enjoyment of words. One of the important aspects that we must make use of is the available community resources available with us like school libraries, clubs and etc.
(Surajbhan is an author, creative artist and a columnist. He can be contacted at sn.surajbhan@gmail.com)
