6 (2) It is, therefore, visualised that wherever a group of minimum size, say 20 men or 10 women, are eager and prepared to make the necessary effort to gain the first stage of literacy, the local school should come forward to organise an adult literacy class, assigning the task to one of its teachers. The teacher should be given a reasonable honorarium, say Rs. 10 to 15 per mensem. The amount required for payment of honoraria to teachers should come in the first instance from the Block budget. To the extent these resources have to be supplemented, the additional funds should be found by the Education Department. In the case of private school, there should be corresponding grants. From the resources available at the Block level for adult literacy (and these will have to be supplemented as the programme develops) the adult literacy centre should be provided with a lamp and the necessary equipment, registers etc. The village community should also make a minimum contribution. This may take the form of providing oil for the lamp and maintaining it in good condition. The books required for adults be given at a low concessional price, the subsidy being met from the funds of the Education Department. Roughly 'the contribution by the village community towards a course lasting for 4 to 5 months may be reckoned at about Rs. 40 to 50 and of the Government at about Rs. 100 or so.
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6. (3) The work of the teacher from the neighbouring, school, needs to be supported and supplemented by educated young men and women in the village who are ready to run similar literacy class. Wherever such classes can be taken by voluntary workers, the facilities and equipenmt mentioned above should also be made available. In some cases voluntary workers may not take any honorarium. It should be stressed that the greater part of the adult literacy programme should go forward with the help of schools and school teachers, the main purpose of voluntary organisations and voluntary workers being to facilitate its further expansion. The programme should not be held up if voluntary workers are not forthcoming in sufficient number, nor should voluntary workers be regarded as substitute for school teachers.
6. (4) In cities and towns, conditions exist for even more rapid programme in removing illiteracy than in the villages, In particular, it will be easier to secure a sufficient number of women, both school teachers and voluntary workers, for removing illiteracy among women. Facilities similar to those mentioned above should be provided in cities and towns. In these, as in the larger village, there will also be scope for "adult school," which can provide instruction to adults at more advanced levels than the first stage. In this programme middle and secondary schools and colleges can play an important part.
7. Supporting services at district and State levels If programme on the lines set out above are undertaken, there will be need to strengthen the organisation at the State and district levels, so that the necessary guidance become, available to field workers, suitable literature and other material are produced, libraries and reading rooms are effectively served and deficiencies in the working of the programme are removed as they come to light. It will be necessary for the State Governments to consider how the arrangements at the State and district levels could be best strengthened. The importance of libraries and reading rooms for maintaining and spreading' literacy cannot be over emphasised and in making allocations this aspect should be kept in view.
8.Additional resources for Adult literacy It is clear that if adult literacy work is to develop in a big way a movement at the community level, supported fully by facilities and guidance from Government agencies, and Panchayati Raj institutions, larger resources will need to be provided. These will supplement the resources already available under education and community development programmes. If the efforts are made on the right lines and both Panchayat Raj' institutions as well as educational institutions are fully involved in it, as it proceeds, through annual plans, it should be possible to provide such further financial and organisational support to it, as may be considered necessary. There is no reason why, given the right approach and a combined attack on illiteracy on the pan of all concerned, financial considerations as such should limit the total effort. In fact, a movement of this nature, deriving support from local communities and enlisting the services of teachers and voluntary workers on a large scale, has the possibility of becoming a major factor in accep leraning the peace of economic development.
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Appendix G (Contd.)
ANNEXURE II
Recommendations of the Annual Conference on Community Development
held at Hyderabad in July, 1961 on Adult Literacy Programme in the
Third Five Year Plan 1. The joint note of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Community Development and Cooperation was considered. The following special points deserve mention in the opinion of the Conference.
2. At the Block level a common approach should be adopted towards social education by the Community development Organisation, the Education Department, and voluntary organisations, and programmes relating to adult education and literacy should be drawn up jointly.
3. Every primary, middle or higher secondary school, working closely with the neighbouring community, should become the centre of adult education work. The headmasters of these institutions should be brought fully into the programme of adult literacy undertaken by the institutions. They should provide supervision over and enthuse their teachers in favour of this programme.
4. The Panchayat must accept the obligation to provide the group of adults willing to learn and to ensure that they complete the course leading up to the first stage of literacy, wherever a group of a minimum size, say 20 men or 10 women, is prepared to make the necessary effort to gain the first stage of literacy. The village Panchayat or village community should be prepared to make a certain minimum contribution in the form of kerosene oil etc. This expenditure may amount to Rs. 40 to Rs. 50 per group over a period of four to five months.
5. Where the Panchayat or Community accepts these obligations, the local school should come forward to organise an adult literacy class assigning the task to one of its teachers.
6 This teacher should be given an honorarium of Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 per month by the Panchayat Samiti from the Block Budget in the first instance. Where the programme develops on a larger scale, it will be necessary to supplement the Panchayat Samiti's resources by provision in the annual Plan of the Education Deptt. The payment of honorarium. will involve the Panchayat, Samiti into an expenditure of Rs. 100 for every minimum group of 20 men or 10 women over a period of four to five months.
7. The role of voluntary workers and especially educated rural youth in the promotion of their programmes needs to be fully emphasised. The Panchayat Samities and Panchayats must accept the responsibility for their Organisation and for their training.
8. (a) The State Government may suggest to the Panchayat
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Samitis that a substantial proportion of funds provided for social education should be earmarked for the adult literacy programme. But in view of the competing demands on the social education budget, it was not possible for the Committee to accept a suggestion that 50 per cent of it should be earmarked for adult literacy. The Conference, however, suggests that the Ministry's earlier recommendations for earmarking of funds for specific programme should not be rigidly applied and that the Panchayat Samitis should be left free to work out and decide their own priorities. A substantial part of the funds allotted to women's programme should also be utilised for literacy among adult women.
(b) The Conference record with appreciation the assurance given by the Planning Commission that once the movement for adult literacy develops in rural areas out of the willing support of the rural communities, additional resources required for promoting the movement will be considered in the Annual Plan budgets of the Education Departments of the State Government.
9. The Committee endorsed the suggestion that the Block Education. Officer and Social Education Organiser should work together in promoting adult literacy. It 'will be their task that teachers in primary schools and other institutions in the Block are' able to participate effectively in other literacy work with the support equally of Government, the Panchayat Samitis and village Panchayats.
10. The essential functions of the Social Education Organiser will be to help to organise adult literacy groups through Village Panchayat and other voluntary organisations. The 'main functions of the Block Education Officer will be to help the various educational institutions situated in the Block, and in particular, the individual teachers, to work with voluntary education groups and to provide necessary facilities and personnel for teaching.
11. Where the Social Education Organiser does not belong to any Department, he should be placed under the Education Department.
12. The State Government will have to accept the responsibility for production of literature for neo-literates. It will also have to provide reading rooms and libraries as supporting services for the adult literacy programme. The literature for neo-literates should be such as to promote their economic efficiency.
Appendix G (Contd.)
MEMORANDUM ON
Item No. 9 (b) To consider the development of a net-work of rural
libraries 123
DEVELOPMENT OF NET-WORK OF RURAL LIBRARIES (Director of College Education, Rajasthan)
The need of education for building up democracy in this country has been realised by our leaders and this is why efforts are being made in the Five Year Plan to provide primary education to increasing number of children in the age group 6-11 in rural area. In the Third Plan it is envisaged that facility for education to age-group 6-11 will be provided only for nearly 80 per cent of the children and it may be in the Fourth Five year Plan that all children in the age-group 6-11 will have the facility of primary education. It will take another decade of more to provide education up to middle stage to all boys between the age group of 11-14. Unless a boy finishes his education up to 8th class, there is very possibility that he will relapse into illiteracy more or less with the passage of time. Therefore, in order to consolidate and make literacy permanent, it will be desirable that rural libraries and reading rooms must be provided, so that this colossal expenditure and enormous effort, which the nation is putting forth for spreading primary education, may not be lost. Even when we are successful in providing, facilities of education up to 8th standard to all children between the age-group 11- 14, the importance of rural libraries and reading rooms will not be reduced. In fact the libraries and reading rooms in the rural areas will become much more important as an institution, which will be in a way an extension service of the village school so that if a rural library and reading room is attached to the primary school or the middle school, as the case may be, all these boys who finish their education after primary standard or middle standard will be in touch with the school of village through the library and the reading room. The library and the reading room should be ran and supervised by the school itself with the help of its teachers.
NOTE OF THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION The need for establishing a net-work of libraries in the rural areas is obvious. Apart from serving as a measure for prevention of relapse into illiteracy, libraries serve other purposes of social education also.
2. It seems that in the proposal of the Director of College Education, Rajasthan, it is envisaged that both the reading rooms and the libraries should be located in the school premises. It is doubtful whether this should be encouraged. It can be said from experience that villagers have a habit of dropping into the reading room at any odd time. They also continue to loiter and talk loudly. The location of a reading room in a library or a middle school, therefore, becomes a nuisance for the school. It would, therefore, be desirable to establish reading rooms for villagers in separate building or premises situated in the village. Such reading rooms may be established by the village Panchayats or the cooperative schools, but the point is that the reading room for villagers should not be located in school.
3. The best place to locate the village library, however, would
be the school because the largest number of borrowers of books is provided by the students of middle schools, past or present.
4. It is also felt that instead of the word "net-work" it would be better to use the word. "system" . rural libraries should form part of a
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well integrated public libraries system for the whole State. There should be district libraries, which should spread library services down to villages. All rural libraries in a development Block should be linked to a central library at the Block headquarters, This will increase the efficiency of the library service,
5. However, till the time a system of public libraries becomes possible, it would be best to set up libraries in schools providing books for children as well as for adults,
Appendix G (Contd.)
MEMORANDUM
ON
Item 9 (c): To consider the Scheme of Gram Shikshan Mohim (Village
Education Campaign) NOTE ON
GRAM SHIKSHAN MOHIM (VILLAGE EDUCATION CAMPAIGN) (Govemment of Maharashtra)
A new experiment in social education has now been launched through out the State called the Gram Shikshan Mohim (Village Education Campaign). The campaign aims at making the whole village literate within the shortest possible period. Under the guidance of the education department, leading persons including Sarpanch, Patil, Talati, president of farmers' union and Mahila Mandal and the head of the school, form a village education committee. Sarpanch works as the president and the teacher as the secretary. Then the lists of literates and illiterates over the ages of 14 years are made. Zonewise suitable places for social education workers to conduct social education classes are fixed. The village Panchayat and benevolent persons from the village take the responsibility of supplying lanterns, kerosene, reading and writing material to the illiterates. Supervisory Committee of influential elderly persons is appointed to supervise the daily working of the various classes. Arrangements are made to ring a bell or blow a syren for giving a call to all to assemble at the various classes. The members of the supervisory committee go around and persuade all the adults to attend classes regularly. When one visits such a village he is simply charmed. There is chorus singing in all the lanes and awakening among all the illiterates who are busy hearing the daily news and tales from Ramayan, Mahabharat and learning to read by topical method with the help of charts. Sometimes walls serve as black-boards and wooden seats and charcoal as slates and pencils. All self-help and no burden on Government. Thus the villagers have to take a lead to make their village 100 per cent literate. This scheme is of the village, by the village and for the village. If proper guidance is given and villagers are inspired, then the scheme works wonders. It brings about unity among the villagers, it inspires the villagers to work Co- operatively, it removes various evils from the
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villagers and aims at bringing about all-sided development of the villagers, The villagers of Ambeghar, a place in Jawali Taluka of Satar district, came so a close together during the 100 per cent literacy campaign (hat they collettively transplanted their paddy fields by "Japanese method " removed the weeds, applied manure doses, sprayed insecticides and helped each other in many other ways.
The villagers from Phule Nagar, a part of Wai town, came so close to each other through the Gram Shikshan Mohim. that they decided to increase their farm produce by helping each other and working in cooperation. They also decided to celebrate all the marriages collectively so as to minimise the expenses. Accordingly, in last May the villagers celebrated 11 marriages collectively. The expenses of the rich were minimised and a helping hand was given to the poor ones.
A good many villagers have constructed approach roads, water channels and small irrigation dams and have added to their income as a result of the campaign.
The campaign creates awakening among people and 'creates thirst for education with the result that the villagers send their sons and daughters regularly to school. They render help to construct new school buildings, donate for introducing agriculture in the school, spend for school uniform, open village libraries and regularly read the newspapers, magazines and try to improve their produce. The villagers come forward to open secondary schools with cooperative efforts.
COMMENTS OF THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION ON THE GRAM SHIKSHAN MOHIM The special feature of the Gram Shikshan Mohim or the Village Education Campaign sponsored by the Government of Maharashtra is that the entire responsibility of the campaign has been cast on the village. The organisational details are similar to those tried in the former Literacy Campaigns, specially in the summer camps on Social Education organised by the old Madhya Pradesh State of which the eight Marathi districts are now in Maharashtra.
2. Such an approach is rendered necessary because of lack of adequate funds for a technically sound and well administered literacy programme within the Five Year Plans.
3. Generally, the public, whether in rural or in urban areas, has so far been indifferent in this matter and has not shown any zeal or concern for eradicating mass illiteracy. The adult illiterate has also not been motivated enough to come to the literacy class and to stay there for such length of times as to enable him to become functionally literate. In these circumstances one merit of such literacy campaigns is that they serve as a spearhead of propaganda and create an urge for literacy in the illiterate population. This cannot be said to be a meagre gain.