Eradicating illiteracy remains a dream

The government's electoral pledge of eradicating illiteracy from the country by 2014 will not be kept due to a lack of adequate budgetary allocation and poor planning.
As of 2010, the country's literacy rate has come up to 59.82 percent, said Md Motahar Hossain, state minister for primary and mass education, quoting statistics of Bangladesh Literacy Survey 2010.
The literacy rate was 53 percent in 2009 and 35.5 percent in 1991 when the country had its democracy restored.
During the Thursday's press briefing, Motahar also expressed his concern saying that the target of attaining cent percent literacy rate by 2014 would not be achieved due to fund constraint.
Amid such realities, the country observes the International Literacy Day today. The day will be observed through events on the theme "Literacy and Peace".
Since 1991, governments have held education as one of the sectors receiving the highest budgetary allocations.
Yet, it failed to bring any significant results.
In 2009, the ministry, with a seriousness to fulfil the government's election pledge of ensuring cent percent literacy, drew up a Tk 3,000-crore mega project, to be implemented by Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE).
But, it could not launch Basic Literacy Project till now for want of money, said officials of BNFE.
The project cost was reduced to Tk 500 crore, and it is now awaiting approval of Ecnec, BNFE Director General Md Alamgir told The Daily Star.
Currently, the government has two ongoing projects to eradicate illiteracy. It hopes to launch two more projects soon including the basic literacy project.
The state minister believes the government would be able to eradicate illiteracy through the projects if all the stakeholders cooperate.
Educationists, however, are sceptical about achieving this target under the project-based approach.
During the press briefing at his ministry's conference room on the eve of the International Literacy Day, the state minister claimed that the literacy rate during the previous Awami League government crossed 65 percent, but it plummeted to 55 percent during the BNP government.
"Now we have the literacy rate of over 60 percent. Besides, we have been able to ensure over 99 percent enrolment in primary schools," he said.
In reply to a question, he said, "It will not be possible to achieve cent percent literacy by 2014 but we will be able to keep moving on the track."
Md Alamgir, DG of BNFE, said the literacy rate would have been improved had the government taken up the mega project.
He, however, said they have been able to literate around 10 lakh people between the ages of 11 to 45 through their Post Literacy and Continued Education for Human Development-2 project.
The BNFE chief also told The Daily Star that they have provided basic education to around 1.66 lakh children aged between 10 and 14 in six divisional towns under another project.
"Apart from providing basic education, we have also offered some skill-based training so that the participants can do something for their livelihood," he said, adding that they had sent a proposal to extend time of both the projects by one year to the planning ministry.
"Despite limited resources, we have come a long way," he observed.
Officials of the ministry said the government did not take any big project to improve the literacy rate after the closure of a previously taken mega project --Total Literacy Movement (TLM).
They also said though the government had stressed ensuring cent percent enrolment in primary schools, it did not put that much emphasis on the literacy movement.
The TLM was introduced in 1996 by the then AL government, but the BNP government cancelled the project in 2003 bringing allegations of irregularities and mismanagement.
Rasheda K Choudhury, former education adviser to a caretaker government, blamed lack of proper planning and strategy on the part of the government for the slow pace in improving literacy rate.
"The government's activity regarding literacy became project-based though it should have been a social movement. Getting the adults and out-of-school pupils involved in education programme is a tough job," she told The Daily Star.
"It is not possible to address the problem with the project-based approach," she observed.
Rasheda, also executive director of Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), said the government needs to initiate a long-term programme with participatory approach, and involve the local government bodies to deal with literacy.