For Literacy Mission, no target is the best target

And though in its own position paper for the Ninth Plan, the Ministry says it hopes to make one crore adults literate every year, in an answer to an unstarred question from BarjinderSingh Hamdard and Kapil Sibal in the RS during the last session of Parliament, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi said categorically: “No target regarding the time-limit for total elimination of illiteracy among adults has been fixed at present.”

But its own paper states otherwise. NLM says its target for the Ninth Plan is 5 crore functionally literate adults. Which means if the Ministry keeps its promise to the Planning Commission, the NLM will finally achieve its target of 10 crore literates by the time the next century dawns — the middle of 2000, to be precise. Yet, in a Directorate of Adult Education publication, the HRD Ministry reiterates its hope to make 10 crore persons functionally literate by 1999 and achieve full literacy by 2005.

This it hopes to do by concentrating on consolidating its post-literacy campaign which it hopes will “mop up the backlog”. Though 40 districts of the 525 are yet to be covered in any way at all, NLM will focus on post-literacy and continuing education.