Literacy and Economic Justice?

January 26, 2008

Literacy and Economic Justice #2: The Total Literacy Campaign in India and
its Effects on Women's Social and Economic Empowerment

Tom Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education

Adults Learning is a magazine published by the National Institute of Adult
Continuing Education (NIACE in England and Wales). Following is a book
review I wrote that appears in Adults Learning for June 2004, Volume 15,
Number 10, pp. 28-29.  It illustrates the continuing  struggle that adult
literacy educators and learners are engaged in all around the world and
UNESCO’s efforts to recognize and honor this work. It calls special
attention to the literacy education of women and the "multiplier effects"
that participating in literacy education can produce, including social
empowerment and increases in financial status for women.

Paradigms of Learning : The Total Literacy Campaign in India
Edited by Malavika Karleka, New Delhi, Sage, 2004, ISBN 81-7829-283-1,
356pp, US$59, hardback
Tom Sticht


>From 1979 to 2003 I served as  a member of UNESCO’s International Jury for

Literacy Prizes. During this time I followed adult literacy work in India
by reading the candidatures for literacy prizes the government submitted to
UNESCO. The first prize for India that I participated in awarding was in
1981 when the jury awarded  a prize to the Department of Adult Education of
the state of Bihar for its massive state-wide literacy campaign. From 1981
to 1998, thirteen various organizations, individuals, and state governments
in India received one or another form of UNESCO recognition for work on
adult literacy education.

The last prize that I participated in awarding to India was presented in
1999 for the National Literacy Mission with its Total Literacy Campaign,
which is the subject of the book reviewed here. In nine chapters Paradigms
of Learning presents a review and critique of the Total Literacy Campaign
(TLC) based on new research conducted a decade after its initiation.  The
editor and contributors to the volume are completely frank in their
critique and present both the successes and shortcomings of the TLC as they
perceived it following their research.

In the first chapter, the editor, Malavika Karlekar, provides a thorough
introduction and overview of the TLC and describes its aim as that  of
"teaching the ability to read without difficulty through descriptions which
would fall within the learner’s own experience
Additionally, copying at the
rate of seven words a minute, counting and writing from 1 to 100, adding
and subtracting three digit numbers as well as being able to multiply and
divide two digit numbers were targeted at. Basic general knowledge of the
world and society as well as of institutions the learners were likely to
encounter was to be imparted, and there was an emphasis on the development
of what was called ‘social and critical consciousness’. All this was to be
taught in 200 learning hours in an environment which suited the
learner.".(p.20).

In addition to the TLC and its 200 hours of instruction, the National
Literacy Mission proposed to follow up the initial acquisition of literacy
with a Post Literacy Campaign (PLC) to further develop the learner’s
literacy and prevent the relapse into illiteracy. Finally, the PLC was to
be followed by Continuing Education (CE) to promote continued learning
among the populations of the various districts involved in the literacy
movement.

Following Karlekar’s overview, six chapters summarize studies in six
districts across India that were involved in the TLC.  In each chapter a
description is provided of the particular district being studied, the
research proceedings, findings, and conclusions. All this is presented in
great detail with descriptions of the social and political contexts of each
of the six field study sites, descriptions of programmes and learning
methods, comments by administrators, volunteers, teachers, learners and
others involved in the various communities, and many tables of various
kinds of statistics.

In two final chapters, Chapter 8  discusses issues related to the evaluating
of literacy campaigns and Chapter 9 is an Afterword by Menaka Roy of the
Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE) which organized the
research reported in the book.

A great many issues are raised and explored in the contexts of the six field
studies, including (though not limited to) issues of local versus centrally
managed literacy programs, the value of a limited duration, targeted
campaign approach in contrast to a continuing education center approach,
problems in promoting and assessing the acquisition of initial literacy and
the need for post-literacy and continuing education programmes to sustain
literacy and promote continued learning and knowledge development.

As would be expected, there are no firm yes or no resolutions to the issues
addressed, but there are useful discussions of the problems encountered in
each field site, such as the failure of many adults to acquire initial
literacy skills due to lack of perceived need, work schedules, or family
needs;  problems of the loss of newly acquired, fragile literacy skills due
to long delays between the initial literacy programs and the start-up of the
post-literacy programs;  loss of interest in continued learning because of a
paucity of relevant materials in native languages and the lack of a
perceived value for further education as a means of social and economic
development. In each of the six Chapters dealing with the examination of
each of the six field sites the authors do a thorough job of discussing the
many complexities implied by these various issues and others.

Given the many problems encountered in mounting and sustaining a national
campaign of such a magnitude, it is important that the overall outcomes of
the TLC were nonetheless positive. In particular, in many sites, numerous
adults acquired initial literacy and a useful percentage did sustain and
advance their literacy and education in post-literacy and continuing
education.  Furthermore, and perhaps of even greater significance, there
were "multiplier" effects of the literacy campaign.

Almost universally women participated in large numbers (some 40 million) and
there were gains in social and political status. This was exhibited in ways
such as successful campaigns by women to shut down sales of alcoholic
beverages that were disrupting family and social life in some districts, by
increasing illiterate women’s  mobility by providing them with bicycles to
attend meetings  and hence empowering them to greater participation in
education and other community activities, challenging employers regarding
rights and responsibilities of workers, and the establishment of over 7,000
women’s credit co-operatives which helped release thousands of women from
indebtedness.

A most perplexing outcome of the TLC, one with a double-sided impact, was
the fact that because of the mobilization of interest in adult literacy
education in the various districts of the field sites "
there is now a
strong demand from parents for the education of their children. This was
one of the many aims of the TLC and is a substantial achievement". (p.
333).

However, on the other side of this very positive outcome of the TLC was the
trend reported in the Afterword by Menaka Roy that attention to the
provision of primary education to children was occurring at the cost of
attention to adult literacy education and was a source of disquiet among
those involved in the TLC. She calls for a balanced approach to education
"between all stages of education, between formal and non-formal, and that
education should be context-specific and learner-centered and accessible to
people of all ages." (p. 333).

Overall, this book provides an in-depth account of a unique national effort
to increase adult literacy within the contexts of the largest democratic
nation on earth. It suggests that while the TLC was not without many
difficulties, and there were many shortcomings, the effort to bring
literacy to tens of millions of adults was worthy of the high recognition
by UNESCO that it received in 1999. It was a worthwhile effort not only for
the benefits it provided for adults but also for the benefits that it
provided for the children of these adults.   It clearly confirmed that in
all nations, rich or poor, one of the best investments we can make for the
education of children is an investment in the education of adults.
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For information about the Adults Learning magazine or NIACE contact
Paul.Stanistreet at niace.org.uk