CHAPTER X ADULT EDUCATION
Adult Education has been accorded high priority in educational planning during the current year. The Government policy in this regard was announced by the Education Minister in the Parliament on April 5, 1977. It was declared by him that highest priority in educational planning would be given to universalisation of elementary education and adult education. Both these areas are of vital importance for eradication of illiteracy in the country. With a view to giving concrete shape to the Education Minister's statement, wide ranging consultations were started by the Ministry which included discussions with educationists, adult education field workers and representatives of the various bodies who are already involved or have potential to be involved in adult education. As a result of these discussions, a draft Policy Statement on Adult Education was prepared in June, 1977 which was widely circulated for comments and was also discussed in the Conference of State Education Ministers and State Education Secretaries. These conferences broadly` endorsed the draft Policy Statement.
The National Adult Education Programme With a view to operationalise the Policy Statement, an Outline of the National Adult Education Programme has been prepared. Both, the Policy Statement and the Outline have been finalised after they were discussed in the National Board of Adult Education, the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for the Ministry and in the Conference of the leaders of various political parties in the Parliament. These documents have now been published by the Ministry.
The National Adult Education Program is to be formally launched from October 2, 1978. However, a substantial stepping up of the coverage under the existing adult education programmes has been planned for the year 1978-79 and necessary provision for this purpose has been made in the annual plans of State Governments. Extensive preparations in the form of project formulation, training of personnel, preparation of materials etc. have already started for launching the programme from the proposed date.
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The National Adult Education Programme, while it emphasises acquisition of literacy skills, also recognises that learning, working and living are inseparable and each acquires a meaning only when correlated with the others. Accordingly, while literacy must be considered as an inseparable tool for the illiterate per sons, the activities to be undertaken under National Adult Education Programme are not to be confined to it but should be related to the needs of learners for their self-reliant development. The National Adult Education Programme therefore, is viewed in a spirit of flexibility, diversity and the decentralisation. Obviously, implementation of such a programme cannot be done only through Governmental agencies. The NAEP, therefore, envisages participation of various agencies governmental, voluntary, private and public sector industries, institutions of formal education etc. The voluntary agencies are expected to play a very special role and steps to secure their full cooperation have been initiated. The administrative structures at the National, State and field levels are also being adequately strengthened to enable them to discharge the new responsibilities.
National Board of Adult Education With a view to advising the Government in regard to formulation of the policies and programmes of adult education for their coordination and implementation, a National Board of Adult Education has been set up. This Board will also review and evaluate from time to time the progress of the implementation of the adult education programmes. The Chairman of the Board is the Union Minister of Education, Social Welfare and Culture and its members include Union Ministers of Information and Broadcasting, Agriculture, and Irrigation, Labour and Parliamentary Affairs and Health and Family Welfare. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission is also its member. The other members of the Board are two Members of Lok Sabha, one Member of Rajya Sabha, five Ministers of Education from States, one Chief Commissioner of a Union Territory, five ex-officio Heads of organisations having a bearing on adult education programmes and nine distinguished educationists. The Joint Secretary, incharge of adult education in the Ministry, is its Member Secretary. The Board held its first meeting on 2nd November, 1977 which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, and discussed the draft Policy Statement on Adult Education and the Outline of the National Adult Education Programme. Both these documents were modified in accordance with the suggestions made by the Board before they were presented for discus-
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sion before the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for Education. The Board also resolved to constitute a number of subcommittees for advising it in different areas of adult education and recommended for setting up of similar Boards at the State levels.
Working Group on Adult Education Keeping in view the priority attached to the adult education and to translate the policy formulated in this regard into a real action programme during the Sixth Plan period, the Government set up a Working Group on Adult Education under the chairmanship of the Education Secretary to suggest concrete schemes for implementation during the Sixth Plan. In order to study the various aspects of the problem and to make recommendations the Working Group set up sub- groups on-
Planning and administrative structures for adult education;
Special problems of adult education for the tribal people;
Identification and training of full-time non-formal education workers in rural areas;
Reorientation of Youth programmes to dovetail them with adult education.
These sub-groups have already submitted their reports and the Working Group has also submitted its interim report which has been taken into consideration in preparing the annual plan for 1978-79. Based on the final report of the Working Group plan proposals for the Sixth Plan will be prepared.
Directorate of Adult Education The Directorate of Adult Education was established in 1971 as a subordinate office of the Ministry by taking out the Department of Adult Education from NCERT, with the major objective of providing technical support to the programmes of adult education. Since then the Directorate has grown considerably in size and coverage. Its roles and responsibilities will be further expanded with the launching of the National Adult Education Programme for which it will have to be appropriately streng-
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thened. The salient activities of the Directorate during the current year were the following :-
1. Two international seminars were organised on developing new approaches and preparing relevant materials for training adult education functionaries at different levels. In these seminars experts from UNESCO, British Council and a few other international agencies also participated. The objectives of the seminars were decided keeping in view the new roles and responsibilities which will fall on the adult education field workers in the implementation of the NAEP. The models and materials developed in these seminars will be very useful in training adult education field workers at different levels.
2. With a view to training the officers of the State Govern- ments and Senior Executives of the voluntary organisations in problems like project formulation, training of personnel, preparation materials etc. two seminars, one national and another regional were organised at Lucknow and Mysore respectively. The methodology adopted in these seminars was of participatory nature wherein the participants actually involved in the process of planning and implementation of adult education programmes at the field level.
3. Curricular guidelines have been prepared keeping in view the educational contents envisaged in the National Adult Education Programme. In these guidelines the levels of literacy, numerary etc. to be achieved under the programme have been suggested and an omnibus curriculum has been illustrated which would be helpful in constituting or adapting curricula relevant to different learner groups.
4. A curriculum has also been prepared for functional literacy of adult women linked to Integrated Child Development Scheme of the Department of Social Welfare.
5. Advisory panels have been set up to advise the Directorate in the areas of training, curriculum preparation, research and innovation and evaluation.
6. A project to compile information in respect of adult educa- tion programmes of different Ministries/Departments of the Government of India was taken up by the Directorate last year. Based on this project a compendium has been prepared which gives basic information about the activities of other Government Department/Ministries in the field of adult education.
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7. On different topics related to adult education 21 publica- tions have been brought out and 13 others are at various stages of preparation. Some of these publications have been printed and others have been mimeographed.
8. The documentation service was strengthened by publishing more bibliographies, abstracts etc. This service has been extended to cover about 400 information cells within the country and about 100 centres outside the country.
9. Continued to function as an associated centre for Unesco's Asian Programme for Educational Innovation and Development.
State Resource Centres With a view to providing academic support to the National Adult Education Programme in the field at the State levels, State Resource Centres are being set up under the auspices of voluntary organisations, universities or other appropriate bodies who have the capacity and expertise to run them. The main functions of these SRCs would the to help the State Governments and other organisations in the initial surveys to formulate the projects, training of personnel, preparation of teaching/learning materials and conducting evaluative studies. So far, State Resource Centres have been set up in U.P., Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal.
Plan Schemes The following plan schemes continued during the year:
Nonformal education for Youth in 15-25 age-group The scheme of Nonformal Education for Youth in 15-25 age-group was launched in the year 1975-76 with the major objective of providing nonformal. education facilities to adult illiterates in the age-group 15-25. The educational content of the programme is to be related to the needs, environment and interests of the persons for whom it is intended and basic literacy and numerary are to be its essential components. The scheme, which is being implemented by the State Governments, is financed by the Centre as well as State Governments on matching basis. It has so far been extended to 60 districts from the funds provided by the Government of India and in an equal number of districts by the States. According to the present pattern 100 centres are sanctioned for each district and each centre is ex-
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pected to have an enrolment of 30 learners. The annual cost of the project in a district, according to the present patterns, is Rs. 1 lakh.
Farmers Functional Literacy Project With a view to linking literacy functionally with major deve- lopmental activities and the specific needs of the learner groups, the Farmers Functional Literacy Project was started in 1967-68 is ail inter-Ministerial project of farmers training and functional literacy with a component of farm broadcasting aimed at popularisation of high yielding variety crops. The programme has so far been extended to cover 144 districts. The coverage includes, besides the high yielding crop cultivation areas, the districts covered under the Integrated Tribal Development Project, Draught Prone Areas Programme and Small Farmers Development Agency Programme. According to the prescribed pattern 60 centres are sanctioned for each district and each centre is expected to have an enrolment of about 30 persons. In 1977-78 the project operated through approximately 8640 centres for a period of 10 months duration and covered about 2.5 lakh persons. The scheme is fully financed by the Government of India.
The Project has been in operation for a period of about 10 years and before it is expanded further in its scope and coverage, it was considered necessary to have its comprehensive evaluation. A Committee was accordingly set up under the chairmanship of Shri J.C. Mathur last year. The main functions of this Committee were to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the programme and to suggest directions for its future expansion. The Committee has already submitted its interim report and its final report is expected to be submitted shortly. It has been decided to expand this scheme as the principal programme of adult education under t4e National Adult Education Programme. In the next year it is proposed to expand this scheme three times with an intensive coverage in the same districts in which it is already in operation. Accordingly, the scheme has been revised and the financial pattern has been modified to achieve better results.
Assistance to Voluntary Agencies working in the field of Adult
Education In the implementation of the National Adult Education Programme voluntary agencies have to play a very special role. In
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order to enlist their greater support and to encourage more voluntary agencies to participate in the adult education programmes, Government have revised the rules of the existing scheme for assistance to voluntary agencies and made them more liberal. In the revised scheme the procedures resulting in avoidable delays have been deleted and the scheme has been streamlined to facilitate release of financial assistance as quickly as possible. The financial provisions under the scheme have also been substantially stepped up. In the financial year under review, the expenditure of this scheme has substantially increased in comparison to the preceding years. In sanctioning the, projects to voluntary agencies priority will be given to projects related to deprived sections of the society such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, rural women etc. The revised scheme of Assistance to Voluntary Agencies also has provision for providing assistance for activities like post-literacy programmes, resource development, innovation and experimentation, research and evaluation, seminars, conferences, publications etc. Under the new pattern assistance would be given upto 75% of the administrative cost and 100% of the field and programme cost for running adult education centres.
Urban Adult Education Programme Urban workers constituted an important segment of the population and their education is an important component of the overall effort in adult education. The programmes of urban adult education are linked with their economic activities on the one hand and their social and cultural responsibilities on the other. So far, there have been two types of programmes in operation i.e. Polyvalent Adult Education Programme offered through the Shramik Vidyapeeths at Bombay, Delhi and Ahmedabad aims at providing basic knowledge and skills related directly to their jobs and the Workers' Social Education Programme offered through the Workers' Social Education Institutes at Indore and Nagpur emphasises on arousing a sense of social and civic res- ponsibility and stimulating a desire of knowledge among the working class. Both the above schemes have been in operation for quite some time and it was felt that since they are serving to the same clientele and have common objectives they should be thoroughly studied and if possible a common programme for urban workers education should be adopted. With this objective a Committee was set up last year to study these programmes and to recommend to Government about their future course. The Committee submitted its report in March, 1977 which was
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examined by an Empowered Committee constituted of the representatives from Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Labour and the Planning Commission. In accordance with the suggestions made by the Empowered Committee, it has been decided to integrate the two schemes into a common scheme on adult education for urban workers which will be implemented through a chain of Shramik Vidyapeeths to be set Lip all over the country.
Production of Literature for neo-literates The objective of this Scheme is to promote preparation of suit- able literature for neo-literate adults. This is done through or- ganisation of annual prize competitions of manuscripts for neo- literates and by giving grant-in-aid to States for production of suitable literature in regional languages. So far 19 prize competitions have been organised and 20th competition has been announced during the current year. In these competitions 40 prizes are awarded to outstanding manuscripts written on various topics related to adult education for neo-literates in different Indian Languages. The author of each awarded manuscript gets a cash prize of Rs. 1000 and Government purchases 1500 copies of the awarded manuscripts when published, for distribution to various adult education centres. Since inception of the scheme, 633 manuscripts have been awarded so far.
Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation This is a new scheme which has been approved for implementation only in the current year. The objective of this scheme is to bring universities closer to the community through their involvement in the programmes of adult education. The main activities envisaged under the scheme are of field operational nature and establishment of resource bases including building of professional cadres for adult education. The scheme also envisages establishment of centres/units for research/evaluative studies concerning adult/nonformal education.
Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation The Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation, which was established in 1972 as an autonomous body to strengthen the library movement in the rural areas, further expanded its activities and is expected to cover 7000 libraries by the end of the current year against a target of covering 5000 libraries in, the 5th Plan. In order to evaluate the work of the Foundation and suggest