Kerala: Case Study.

I received an email recently from doctor who is reading this blog (Thank you!). He sent the below extract from an article on a literacy project in Kerala, India. Kerala State: A Social Justice Model, by Richard W. Franke and Barbara H. Chasin, was published in the Multinational Monitor (click on this link to view it in full). Here is what was sent to me:

The Literacy Campaign
One of the most important of the New Democratic Initiatives was a campaign to establish full literacy throughout Kerala, begun in December 1988. The Kerala People's Science Movement (KSSP) initiated the campaign in Ernakulum District, mobilizing nearly 22,000 volunteer activists. The volunteers organized jathas (processions), meetings, drama presentations and literacy classes in the neighborhoods where illiteracy was concentrated. The KSSP was founded in the 1960s as an organization of scientists who wanted to popularize scientific thinking among ordinary people. Over the years it has evolved into one of Kerala's most important voluntary organizations and is especially active on environmental issues.

The KSSP created popular committees to energize and involve villagers in all 860 rural wards of the District as well as in the municipal wards. Five literacy jathas, beginning from five edges of the Ernakulum District in January 1989, inaugurated the campaign. Major political leaders, literary figures, religious scholars and academics led the jathas. Each jatha also had an artists' group. They traveled for six days on foot, giving street plays, folk performances, group songs and speeches at various stopping points. An average of 300 to 400 people gathered at these reception points.

The jathas and artistic performances helped create an atmosphere in which people felt they could come forward, admit their illiteracy and join the classes. After the classes began, literacy walls were set up in each ward to give news of the campaign. At some events, illiterates were encouraged to come forward and display any talents they had. Many could sing, dance or recite. The campaign encouraged these activities to promote the self-esteem and self-awareness of the learners. Thousands of prizes and certificates were awarded.

Activists hoped to teach villagers to read in Malayalam - the language spoken in Kerala - at the rate of 30 words per minute, to copy text at seven words per minute, to count and write numbers up to 100, to add and subtract three-digit numbers and to multiply and divide two-digit numbers. They also hoped to teach basic knowledge about the public institutions of Kerala and India, fair prices for basic goods, how to read a clock, nutrition, disease prevention, equality of the sexes and the dignity of work. Immunization discussions were coordinated with a campaign that vastly increased immunization levels against measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria and polio.

During the campaign, teachers discovered that lack of eyeglasses prevented many learners from reading. In one Muslim region, organizers responded with an appeal for local people to donate spectacles. During October and November 1989, more than 50,000 pairs of eyeglasses were donated. Forty volunteers, who received one-day training courses, matched those who needed glasses with the appropriate set of lenses.

In February 1990, Ernakulam's district collector, who acts as the district's chief executive officer, handling day-to-day government operations, declared the district 100 percent literate: 135,000 persons had learned to read and write out of an estimated total of 174,000 illiterates in the district. The 135,000 neo-literates had scored better than 80 percent on a program literacy test; the other 39,000 failed the test, but gained some literacy skills which they could build on in follow-up programs. An independent observer calculated that each student became literate at a cost of less than $26 per person. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) bestowed its 1990 literacy award on the KSSP.

One achievement of the campaign was the pride of accomplishment of the mostly low-caste learners. Many of the older learners had fought in earlier years in land reform struggles or had other long-term experiences with trying to change their lives. Learning to read and do arithmetic gave them the confidence to challenge government officials above them. One journalist reported that "collectors in Kerala say neo-literates are writing letters to demand better roads and health facilities." The statewide expansion of the program resulted in Kerala's being declared 100 percent literate in 1991.