4,300 illiterates in the district of the educated!

Team Udayavani, Feb 20, 2019, 8:20 AM IST

Mangaluru: Altogether 4,300 individuals have been identified as illiterates in the Dakshina Kannada district which identifies itself as a district of educated people. The government has again started the literacy programme which had been stopped in 2009.

Previously, the district has been announced as a literate district. But, suspecting that there are still people who are illiterates, a survey targeting individuals from the age of 15 to 50 years was conducted through Anganwadi workers.  

According to the survey, 1,791 individuals in Mangaluru, 943 in Belthangady, 591 in Sullia, 633 in Puttur and 342 in Bantwal have been identified to be illiterates. In order to provide literacy top them, meetings have been conducted for the PDO’s of the GP’s and supporters. Teaching and evaluation will be conducted for those who have been identified in the survey.

Though it has been decided to conduct the literacy teaching progress through service agencies, now the GP’s will implement it themselves. The responsibility of the implementation has been given to the PDO’s. Supporters are already indulging in the action on the GP level.

The continuation of education being conducted under the district literacy programme was stopped in March 2009.

6 months of learning

The state literacy mission of the World Education Directorate has created “Balige Belaku” textbook with the aim to provide literacy to the illiterates. Normally in schools the model of teaching starts from letters to words and from words to sentences. But under this scheme, the process is reversed by teaching from sentences to words and from words to letters. The time span for the course is 6 months with 2 hours of studies every day. The course has been divided into reading, writing and calculations and each has been divided into 50 marks with a total of 150 marks. 40% marks is necessary to be considered as a pass out.

In accordance to the government order

“Literacy activity has been restarted in the district to provide literacy for those identified through the survey conducted to identify illiterates between the ages of 15 and 50 years. Action is being taken for its implementation by conducting taluk level meetings in all taluks,” said Sudhakar K, District Adult Education Officer

Article by Keshav Kunder translated into English by Aaron Dmello