Editorial 2: Himachal declared 'fully literate': what does this mean?
Context:
Recently Himachal Pradesh was declared a ‘fully literate’ state along with Goa, Ladakh, Mizoram, and Tripura. They have achieved the literacy rate above 95%. Many government schemes such as ULLAS have played a major role in making these states fully literate.
Definition of literacy:
- Ministry of education has defined literacy as the “ability to read, write and compute with comprehension”. It can also be defined as ability to identify, understand, and interpret, along with life skills such as digital literacy, financial literacy.
- Achieving full literacy is one of the Sustainable Development Goals of UN and it is one of the objectives under the New Education Policy, 2020. NEP calls for adult education initiatives to achieve 100% literacy.
ULLAS program:
- It was launched in 2022 with the aim of achieving 100% literacy by 2030 for the people over 15 years of age who may not have attended school.
- Ministry of Education has considered the similar definition of literacy for the ULLAS scheme (Understanding Lifelong Learning for All).
- Under ULLAS, adult learners are taught basic reading writing, and simple arithmetic like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division that a child in school would learn up to class 3.
- These adults are also taught to read and measure time, use calendars, currency notes, write cheques and make digital transactions.
- They are trained using mobile phone apps or offline, by students and community volunteers.
- After the training, a 150 marks reading, writing and numeracy test, known us Functional Literacy Numeracy Assessment Test (FLNAT), is administered in person’s chosen language. On passing the test they receive a certificate of foundational literacy and numeracy by National School of Open Schooling (NIOS).
States achieving full literacy:
- For the purpose of achieving full literacy state conduct door-to-door surveys or identifying persons who need training under ULLAS program.
- They are provided necessary training and administered the FLNAT.
- The state achieves full literacy when all the adults they identified as not literate pass the FLNAT.
- In states/UTs where literacy levels are already high as per 2011 census or whose population is relatively smell, the process of identifying illiterate people, imparting them training, and making them clear FLNAT becomes easy.
Measurement of literacy:
- As per census of 2011, literacy rate for women and men were 64.6% and 80.9% respectively. Also the adult literacy, defined for those aged 15 and above, literacy rates was 69.3%.
- For census 2011, government defined literacy as the person of age 7 years or above who can read and write with understanding in any language.
- National Sample survey from Jan-June 2014, showed an adult literacy rate of 71%. It used similar definition o f literacy as the Census.
- The Periodic Labor Force Survey for 2023-24 showed the literacy levels of 77.5%.
Way forward:
Achieving the ‘fully literate’ status should be considered as the first step towards holistic development. The definition of literacy used for giving this status focuses on basic foundational knowledge of numeracy and language learning. As a further step, we must aim for the 100% employment rates by focusing on skill development, vocational courses. The definition of literacy should be broadened to include skill development and vocational learning.