ADULT EDUCATION
The Adult Education Programme has been accorded high priority by
its inclusion in the new 20-point economic programme and the minimum
9 needs programme as a component of elementary education in the 6th Five
Year Plan with an outlay of Rs. 128 crores, including Rs. 60 crores, in the
Central Sector and Rs. 68 crores in the, State Sector. The 6th Five Year
Plan document envisages coverage of the entire adult illiterate population
which is estimated to be around 1.1 crores by the year 1990.
Adult Education Programmes are being implemented through various
agencies such as State Governments/Union Territory Administrations,
Voluntary Agencies, Universities/Colleges, Nehru Yuvak Kendras etc.
1,50,969 Centres are being at present run by different agencies with or with-
out financial assistance of the Government of India as shown below :
(i) Rural Functional Literacy Programme 99,574
(ii) State Adult Education Programme 59,015
(iii) Voluntary Agencies 5,873
(iv) Nehru Yuvak Kendras. 527
(v) Universities/Colleges 644
(vi) Others 3,087
Total 1,38,720
*Jammu & Kashmir 2,926
*Meghalaya 1,195
*Karnataka 8,128
Grand Total . 1,50,969
* Programme-wise break-up could not be available from these States
The total enrolment in these centres was 43.62 lakhs out of which,
24.85 lakhs were men and 18.76 lakhs were women. In addition, 3.52
lakhs women were covered under FLAW Programme for literacy learning.
Of the total enrolment, 11.49 lakhs were Scheduled Castes and 7.31 lakhs
were Scheduled Tribes.
At present the following Adult Education Programmes are in operation
Strengthening of Administrative Under this Scheme, financial assistance is provided to State Govern-
Structures in States/Union ments/Union Territory Administrations for creation of necessary adminis-
Territories for Implementation trative structures at the State level and district levels in accordance with
of Adult Education Programmes an approved pattern for implementation of adult education programmes
in their areas. 18 States and 7 Union Territory Administration have been
sanctioned financial assistance under this Scheme during 1983-84. Two
more States are likely to be sanctioned financial assistance for this purpose
shortly. An expenditure of Rs. 221 lakhs will be made tinder this Scheme
during the year 1983-84.
Rural Functional Literacy Projects This Scheme envisages setting up of adult education projects with 100
(RFLP) to 300 centres in each Project with an average enrolment of 30 adult illite-
rates in each Centre. Gradually all the districts in the country are to be
covered by these Central Projects.
During 1983-84, 316 projects were continued. Of these 199 projects
are located in the districts having literacy rate below the national average.
62 new projects have been sanctioned to States/Union Territories raising
the total number of projects from 316 to 378. As per the policy of the
Government most of these new sanctioned projects will be located in the
areas with literacy rate below the national average. With the operationalisa-
tion of all the 378 projects the coverage of adult illiterates under this Schmidt
will be around 34 lakhs in a year.
46
Scheme of Assistance to Voluntary Voluntary agencies are given financial assistance for undertaking pro-
Agencies working in the Field of jects of functional literacy, post-literacy, publications and Resource develop-
Adult Education ment, organisation of workshops and seminars etc. During 1983-84, 350
voluntary agencies in 16 States/Union Territories have been approved for
undertaking 16,340 adult education Centres for functional literacy and
post-literacy work. These agencies will cover nearly 4.90 lakhs people.
Grants amounting to Rs. 288 lakhs have been sanctioned by the Ministry
to these voluntary agencies for this purpose.
Involvement of Student in Adult The New Twenty Point Programme also visualises the removal of adult
Education Programme illiteracy, through involvement of students in the programme. A Working
Group under the Chairmanship of Dr. (Mrs.) Madhuri R. Shah (also Chair-
man of UGC was set up to review the existing Adult Education and
tension Programme being implemented through Universities and Colleges,
with a view to identify the difficulties and suggest measures to involve
students and teachers in the removal of illiteracy. The Working Group has
submitted its report and the recommendations made by it have generally
been accepted. The Commission has initiated steps to involve affiliating type
of universities and nearly 1500 colleges by 31st March, 1983 to organise
nearly 15,000 centres and by 31st March, 1990 all the universities and
colleges to undertake 50,000 centres. All the universities have been requested
to formulate the programme according to the new guidelines formulated by
the Commission.
Post-literacy and Follow-up Pro- Post-literacy and follow-up activities are an integral part of the Adult
grammes Education Programme. The Programme is designed to reinforce the liter-
acy skills in its use in daily life, improvement of vocational skills and initiate
learning about supplement employment village industries, dairy, poultry
and piggery.
The programme has been strengthened under the new strategies of the
Government adopted for effective implementation of the Adult Education
Programme. Accordingly, financial assistance to the extent of Rs. 89.13
lakhs has been sanctioned to 22 States/Union Territories during 1983-84
for undertaking post-literacy and follow up activities. These States/Union
Territories have also been permitted to utilise the unspent amount of nearly
Rs. 100 lakhs available with them from the last year's grant.
Shramik Vidyapeeths These Vidyapeeths provide non-formal education, training facilities to
the workers and their families both in the organised as well as in the un-
organised sectors in the urban areas.
During 1983-84, one new Vidyapeeth has been sanctioned in West
Bengal, thus raising the strength from 17 to 18 vidyapeeths in the country
Two more Vidyapeeths are expected to be set up shortly. These Vidyapeeths,
during the year, have undertaken a number of polyvalent adult education
programmes lot workers and their families based on curricula suited to their
needs.
State Resource Centres (SRC) For providing technical support to the adult education programme, 15
State Resource Centres have been set up in the various parts of the country;
These centres work in curriculam formulation, preparation of teaching and
learning materials, development of methods and medias, training of func-
tionaries, monitoring and evaluation, research and innovation. Propo-
sals to set up two new State Resource Centres particularly in the North
Eastern parts of the country have been mooted to cater to their specific
needs in these areas.
Special cells have been set up in four State Resource Centres
Madras, Patna and Jaipur to develop materials for weaker sections and
the women. During 1983-84, grant amounting to Rs. 43 lakhs (approxi-
mately) have been approved for these centres.
Evaluation An element of evaluation is inbuilt in the system of adult education
programme. However, to establish the credibility of the programme and
to ensure that its quality does not suffer, evaluation of the programme is
also pot done from the institutions of Social Science Research. Seven such
institutions have been entrusted the evaluation job of the programme run-
ning in 6 States. During the year 1983-84, appraisal studies were con-
ducted by these Institutes for the adult education programme in the States
47
of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Similar
appraisal of the programme in Orissa is expected to be undertaken during
this year itself. For this purpose, grants amounting to Rs. 5.07 lakhs have
been released to them so far.
National Board of Adult The National Board of Adult Education (NBAE) is an apex body set
Education (NBAE) tip by the Ministry of Education to advise the Government on the formula-
tion of policies on all aspects of adult education and on coordination of
their implementation. The Board held its first meeting in November, 1983
under the Chairmanship of the Minister of State for Education. The re-
commendations of the Board are briefly as under :
(i) More attention should be paid for the coverage of women illi-
terates. For this purpose, Mahila Samitis, Gram Panchayats
and prominent All-India Level Women Organizations should
be involved.
(ii) Participation of Students and Voluntary Organisations in the
adult education programme should be increased. Alongwith
university students, high school students may also be encour-
aged to participate in the programme. Panchayats, and Muni-
cipalities should be treated as Voluntary Organisations for
this purpose and once a voluntary organisation is selected for
participation in the programme, the financial assistance should
continue to be given to such an organisation for 3-4 years with-
out its being asked to approach the Ministry through the chan-
nels of the State Governments/Union Territories every year.
(iii) Linkage of the programme with the programmes of the deve-
lopment departments should be pursued. More important thing
was to link the programme with the economic programme so
that more people may be motivated to join the programme.
(iv) 'the Teaching/Learning material produced by the State Re-
source Centres should be more informative, interesting and
relevant to the needs of the learners. Separate material should
be prepared for women learners keeping their needs in view.
(v) The folk media and oral tradition including mass media in
context of INSAT-I.B should be fully exploited.
Directorate of Adult Education Following activites were undertaken by the Directorate of Adult Educa-
tion which acts as a technical wing of the Ministry of Education and
National Resource Centres (NRC) in the matters relating to Adult
Education :
CURRICULUM AND MATERIALS PRODUCTION
(a) Basic Literacy Material
The following basic literacy materials were prepared and finalised for
printing :-
(i) A set entitled 'Khilti Kaliyan' which include the primer, a work-
book and a teachers' guide.
(ii) Teachers Guide of 'Dharti Ke Lal' primer and a book con-
taining aids with reference to 'Dharti Ke Lal'.
(b) UNICEF assisted project of Non-formal Education for Women and
girls.
A project of non-formal education for Women and Girls has been
undertaken with the objective of strengthening of existing Adult Education
Programme. Two meetings were convened in connection with the project
to review the material prepared by the different agencies on 'Mother and
Child Care'.
Some material worth Rs. 3.76 lakhs has been received from UNICEF
and the same has been distributed to the State Resource Centres/State
Governments concerned etc. for their use.
48
48 A
(c) Post-literacy and Follow-up Programme
(i) Guidelines for developing graded materials and Production
of sample literature.
For the preparation of graded materials for neo-literates, guidelines
were developed and sample material to illustrate the use of these guidelines
was brought out.
(ii) National Prize Competition of Manuscripts for Neo-literates.
The 24th National Prize Competition of manuscripts for neo-literates
was organised this year and 40 manuscripts in 14 languages were accepted
for award. Prizes worth Rs. 1000/- each to the writers of the manuscripts
were given. The entries for the 25th Prize competition were invited.
Orientation & Training Programmes (a) Two orientation Seminars for District Adult Education Officers
were organised, one in collaboration with literacy House,
Lucknow and the other in collaboration with the Regional Re-
source Centre, Chandigarh. The main thrust of the Seminar
was to provide the participants insights into their roles and res-
ponsibilities as head of the Adult Education Programme in
the districts. Orientation about aspects relating to concep-
tualisation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and Post-
literacy was specifically done.
(b) In collaboration with the NIEPA, a National Seminar of key
level functionaries in adult education was organised. The
objectives of the Seminar were :
(i) to identify and discuss the key issue in the management of
Adult Education Programme;
(ii) to provide a forum for exchange of experience and inno-
vative approaches adopted by different States/Union Ter-
ritories; and
(iii) to develop appropriate strategies for effective implementa-
tion and strengthening of the programme particularly at
the field level with co-operation of various agencies.
(c) Work relating to a scale for measuring outstanding workers in
the field of Adult Education was initiated. This might act as
a motivation to upgrade the adult education programme in
practice.
Planning Monitoring, Evaluation (i) A Seminar on Monitoring of post-literacy and follow-up pro-
& Statistics grammes was organised in collaboration with the Gujarat State
Resource Centre for Adult Education at Ahmedabad. A set
of forms and guidelines for monitoring the post-literacy activi-
ties at various levels were prepared and finalized.
(ii) Regional Orientation Work-shop for Statistical Personnel was
organised in collaboration with the Centre for Adult Educa-
tion and Extension, University of Kerala, Trivandrum to
orient the persons connected with the monitoring of the pro-
gramme about the procedures and techniques of collection of
data, its scrutiny, compilation and the necessity of examining its
truthfulness, accuracy and reliability.
(iii) Preparation of Quarterly Monitoring Reports : The Adult Edu-
cation Programme forms part of the 20 Point Programme. The
Directorate collected, compiled and prepared quarterly reports
as well as abstract information for use of the Planning Commis-
sion and general dissemination purposes, took feed-back action
on the problems mentioned by the States/Union Territories in
their monitoring reports, and prepared detailed profiles on
States/Union Territories for the use of Education Secretaries
conferences, Central Advisory Board of Education Meeting
and orientation programmes for key functionaries.