25 Mar, 2007
PATNA: The state government has constituted a sub-committee to prepare an action plan for giving impetus to informal education and literacy programmes. Announcing this here on Saturday, CM Nitish Kumar hoped that the Centre will extend full cooperation in this regard. He was speaking at the 12th annual Akshar Bihar programme organised jointly by ADRI and a Hindi daily. Laying stress on development of human resources, Nitish said his dream is to achieve the "millennium goal". But for this, he added, stress on informal education like adult and women literacy was important. He said there was little fund for this as most of the funds go to formal education. "Without informal education, the rate of literacy cannot be increased," he noted. Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said illiteracy is linked to poverty. To remove poverty, removal of illiteracy is a must. Modi said in Kerala and other places, the literacy rate is high because social reformers started literacy campaigns at those places over a century ago. In Bihar, he said, no social reformer took up this cause. He also hinted at adopting the mother-child literacy programme, a la the Madhya Pradesh experiment. HRD minister Brishen Patel, who chaired the function, lamented that the previous regime had reduced the literacy programme into an illiteracy campaign. That is the reason, he added, the government has to work more in this sector. Earlier, the CM gave away prizes to several people and social activists for spreading awareness on literacy. ADRI member secretary Shaibal Gupta said Bihar needs to fulfil its unfinished tasks. Health minister Chandra Mohan Rai stressed on the sense of urgency and said it has been developed in various sectors. During the first session, secretary, school education and literacy, Union ministry of HRD, Champak Chatterjee said even hundred per cent enrolment in schools could not effectively help in achieving the target of literacy unless the hitherto forgotten age group of 35 was addressed to. Delivering a lecture on "Literacy roadmap for the future," Chatterjee said the National Literacy Mission faced challenges in inculcating literacy skills among illiterates in the age group of 15 and addressing the learning needs of neo-literate. In Bihar, the female literacy was only 33.12 per cent, he said. Patna High Court CJ J N Bhatt stressed on legal literacy, particularly among Dalits and the downtrodden sections of society, who are caught in the quagmire of court cases. He said there were two groups of people, one group avoids going to the court thinking they will not get justice and another group comprise those who take law into their own hands.
PATNA: The state government has constituted a sub-committee to prepare an action plan for giving impetus to informal education and literacy programmes. Announcing this here on Saturday, CM Nitish Kumar hoped that the Centre will extend full cooperation in this regard. He was speaking at the 12th annual Akshar Bihar programme organised jointly by ADRI and a Hindi daily. Laying stress on development of human resources, Nitish said his dream is to achieve the "millennium goal". But for this, he added, stress on informal education like adult and women literacy was important. He said there was little fund for this as most of the funds go to formal education. "Without informal education, the rate of literacy cannot be increased," he noted. Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said illiteracy is linked to poverty. To remove poverty, removal of illiteracy is a must. Modi said in Kerala and other places, the literacy rate is high because social reformers started literacy campaigns at those places over a century ago. In Bihar, he said, no social reformer took up this cause. He also hinted at adopting the mother-child literacy programme, a la the Madhya Pradesh experiment. HRD minister Brishen Patel, who chaired the function, lamented that the previous regime had reduced the literacy programme into an illiteracy campaign. That is the reason, he added, the government has to work more in this sector. Earlier, the CM gave away prizes to several people and social activists for spreading awareness on literacy. ADRI member secretary Shaibal Gupta said Bihar needs to fulfil its unfinished tasks. Health minister Chandra Mohan Rai stressed on the sense of urgency and said it has been developed in various sectors. During the first session, secretary, school education and literacy, Union ministry of HRD, Champak Chatterjee said even hundred per cent enrolment in schools could not effectively help in achieving the target of literacy unless the hitherto forgotten age group of 35 was addressed to. Delivering a lecture on "Literacy roadmap for the future," Chatterjee said the National Literacy Mission faced challenges in inculcating literacy skills among illiterates in the age group of 15 and addressing the learning needs of neo-literate. In Bihar, the female literacy was only 33.12 per cent, he said. Patna High Court CJ J N Bhatt stressed on legal literacy, particularly among Dalits and the downtrodden sections of society, who are caught in the quagmire of court cases. He said there were two groups of people, one group avoids going to the court thinking they will not get justice and another group comprise those who take law into their own hands.
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