| "Eight years ago one-half of
our population was illiterate, today only one-third is unlettered. If we keep at this
rate, we will have crossed the 75 per cent literacy threshold in the next 10 years,"
says an upbeat M.K. Kaw, education secretary. The
idea seems to be to tout these happy numbers—much like the ecstatic Ahelwadi
villagers—so that we quickly dump doomsday prophesies on education. Like the one made
in the recent unicef State of World’s Children 1999 report. It predicts that India
will be the "most illiterate country in the world in 2000". To end this kind of
‘western distortion’, we have been furnished with fresh desi data that rubbishes
‘back-dated foreign statistics’ hurting the national ego by proclaiming that
‘every third illiterate in the world is an Indian’. Not true any more. Now,
we’ve been told that six-and-a-half Indians in 10 are literate.
"But is our national pride so flimsy that it has to be
boosted through scams in data analysis! It’s pure corruption!" fulminates
demographer Ashish Bose. "They play around with numbers to twist reality and give a
bad name to statistics. These surveys are supposed to lead us to areas of strengths and
concerns that need urgent attention. They are not for pumping hormones into flaccid
egos." Agitated at the aplomb with which numbers are being manipulated to facilitate
propaganda, the expert says: "This gaudy display of data means so little in actual
terms. Flaunting Mizoram and other Northeastern states as having jumped up the literacy
ladder with over 20 percentage points and, in turn, getting the national literacy average
galloping, is a fallacy. In actual number terms, these states don’t even add up to
make one per cent of the population and, to boot, they’ve had over 100 years of
missionary school education. So why take credit for it? Talk about Orissa instead, where
poverty and illiteracy have always been a problem; it’s been a less than two
percentage point increase in literacy there."
But more than quibble over details in this latest slew of
numbers, Bose is mystified by a more challenging problem in the skewed arithmetic of
literacy. For over a century now, literacy, as defined for the country’s census data
collecting agencies, is no more than the "ability to read and write a simple
letter". This from 1881 to 1991, when the last census was conducted. "We have
made no progress in our understanding or definition of what it means to be lettered. And
even in this limited definition, we’ve failed. No tests are conducted by data
collectors during surveys. People are merely asked whether they are literate or not and
entries are made," observes Bose.
Further, factors such as "relapse into illiteracy"
aren’t taken into account at all. "Many go to school for some years as children
but later forget what they learnt and can barely sign their names; but they too find place
in our great list of achievements," says Bose.
In fact, even a man who’s been an important insider in
many such statistic-gathering exercises, former nsso chief S.S. Srivastava, doesn’t
defend these inflated numbers. "I’m aware that the latest literacy figures have
come under fire from most statisticians and demographers. But that is expected,
considering the data has been culled out of the 53rd Round of National Sample Survey that
wasn’t meant for gathering information, giving estimates or providing analysis on
literacy. In fact, the task on hand had been to collect data on ‘Non-Directory
Trading Establishments and Own Account Trading Enterprises’. Naturally, then the
sample design wasn’t tailored for the literacy numbers that the government is now
publicising. High time the government understood that statistics can’t be the
ammunition in the battle against illiteracy."
Particularly in a battle that’s been lost to meaningless
counting of heads. Diwan Chandra, 22, works as a daily-wage labourer for the Lucknow
Development Authority. Brazenly declaring himself an upper-primary school pass-out,
Chandra shies away when asked to read the simplest of sentences. "I can’t. We
were always promoted to the next class, even if we didn’t study," he admits.
About 30 km away, in Kathouta’s primary school, Sarita Kumari, 16, relives
Chandra’s terror of alphabets. In class VIII, she can’t read from her texts what
she hasn’t already learnt by rote. Yet, she visits her toiletless school as a daily
routine: an uncomfortable chore that Sarita says she doesn’t enjoy at all. And before
long, she too will trundle into being a literacy statistic like Chandra. A literacy
statistic uncomfortable with numbers and letters.
"Why don’t they stop with this counting of
literates and start with the business of education," says Anil Sadgopal, head of
Delhi University’s department of education. Literacy is no more than a symptom of
education, argues the academic, and all this "measuring of literates just goes to
show they are up to mischief" and not committed to the goal of education. "With
enrolment rates not showing any signs of tremendous growth, dropout rates steadily on the
increase and more than half of our children out of schools, it could only have been a
miracle that we still managed to educate two-thirds of India!"
Little wonder then that the Himachal Pradesh-based ngo
People’s Action for People in Need was shocked to find that most voters in relatively
backward Sirmour—which according to the ’91 census is 51 per cent
literate—put thumb impressions on the rolls when asked to sign during the last
elections. Such observations, in fact, will always remain valid challengers to the
gimmicky government statistics that persuade us to believe attractive half-truths. And
then there are other statistics that just do not give themselves to being embellished no
matter how hard the effort to make them engaging.
A whopping 69.33 per cent students dropped out of our schools
between class I and X in 1997-98. The expansive state of Uttar Pradesh, committed to
achieving ‘total literacy’ by next year, has to have two crore schools if every
child is to be given a one-km access to education. Forget distance, even social access
remains a problem for many. The probe report, 1998, highlighted the gender-steeped opinion
expressed by the 226 respondent households who had never enrolled their children in
schools: 82 per cent said they kept their daughters out of school for help with domestic
work.
And yet, the slate’s not all dirty. There are greys in
these stark black-and-white attitudes. Eighty per cent of the total sample size of the
parents interviewed by the probe survey team voted for compulsory elementary education.
There’s no denying that aspirations to education abound in our villages, towns and
cities.
And those who’ve had success in translating these
aspirations into realities have defied text-book solutions to do so. One such is the Lok
Jumbish that is working wonders along with the state government to attain the
universalisation of education in Rajasthan. Small additions and meagre subtractions have
changed entire equations here.
In Kaman block’s predominantly Muslim Bagechi village,
only one girl attended school six years ago. Today, only one girl doesn’t attend. And
a flustered community is embarrassed about it. "She’ll go too, we’re
working on it. It’s just that her mother is a lazy woman who refuses to manage home
by herself." What taught this community embarrassment at illiteracy? "An
educational initiative that does away with rigid systems and addresses geo-cultural
pluralities," says Anil Bordia, the Lok Jumbish chairperson.
On ground it’s even more appealing than it sounds.
Realising that parents would rather send their children to masjid-run madrasas than
government schools, Lok Jumbish workers started befriending the moulvis. Simultaneously,
they convinced villagers that Urdu teachers would be provided at each school. Today, many
a school has the village moulvi himself teaching Urdu for a small remuneration. The
schools are full of children and enthusiasm.
Yes, it has always worked when curricula are relevant and
community need-based. Sometimes it works even better if people demand their needs be met.
Much like the Education Guarantee Scheme in Madhya Pradesh where any panchayat that
doesn’t have a school within one km of the village can demand one in writing and the
state government will be obliged to provide it. Madhya Pradesh, in fact, has many
innovative schemes going.
Forty-five kilometers from Dhar, a teacher duo works on 79
students in the small primary school in Chiloor village. It’s a modern rendition of a
pathshala or maqtab—a multigrade system as against the usual monograde method of
teaching in education jargon. A single teacher handles five classes and students are
judged on the basis of acquired competencies rather than marks. So, a child could be in
Class V for a subject and class II for another. Avers Dhar’s collector, Rajesh
Rajora: "Over 80 per cent of the country’s primary schools have only three
teachers on an average: so in a way, they are also following a multigrade system. Here we
have formally accepted it and made things easier."
And more contextually relevant to the community. A point our
education system has so far ignored. Shashank Vira, who heads the r&d wing of the isce
Board that’s revamping its curriculum currently, says he was amazed to find how not
one mainstream board gave its students the option to study agricultural sciences.
"This in an agricultural country! We introduced it last year. And made some other
radical changes like making mathematics optional, even in Class X. Students will drop out
if you decide you’re the only one who knows all and the rest have to comply with what
you think is right for them. There has to be more choice in education."
And less Literacy Number Games, perhaps. Otherwise, when
literacy scores are flashed large on our blackboards, our classrooms might not be quite as
crowded as the government expects them to be.
With Neeraj Mishra in Bhopal and Sutapa
Mukerjee in Lucknow
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