This reply was sent out to one specific query. Guess it applies for
others interested too. FN
**
It is always good to be sharing information with like minded individuals
and organisations.
As you may have learned from my friend, Fred Noronha, and perhaps a
perusal of the website, www.tataliteracy.com, Tata Consultancy Services
has been working in this field since May 2000. As of now our computer
based functional literacy programme has offerings in Hindi, Marathi,
Bengali, Tamil and Telugu.
More than 30,000 persons have become functionally literate in Andhra,
Tamil Nadu and other smaller locations in Maharashtra and Madhya
Pradesh. It requires the use of a sound enabled computer, Pentium 1
will suffice and we encourage the use of primers of the State Resource
Centres of NLM which are inexpensive to procure.
We provide the software on free-for-non-commercial-use basis on a
CD-ROM.
I am sending a few items of interest.
In case you would like to have a CD, do let us know something of your
initiatives for literacy by radio, and send your postal address and
telephone number.
Best wishes,
Anthony Lobo
Tata Consultancy Services
Air India Building 10th Flr # 71
Nariman Point Mumbai 400 021
Tel 56689378 (d) 5668 (bd)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
corp soc responsibility : adult literacy prog
WWW.TATALITERACY.COM
* * *
THE 300-MILLION QUESTION: HOW TO SPREAD LITERACY IN INDIA... AND FAST
From Frederick Noronha
WHAT DO you do with a population of close to 300 million iliterates, who
can speak their native languages, but cannot read or write in them? Do
we see them merely as empty stomachs, and a burden on the nation? Or, is
this an untapped potential, which can be converted into 600 million
useful hands?
If a project by premier Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) can find the
right partners, and hit critical mass, then this large section could be
converted into productive individuals who can read signboards. Maybe
even the simple text of a newspaper in under 40 hours of learning-time.
Retired Major General B G Shively's recent mission to the Goa port town
of Vasco da Gama saw him take on an unusual enemy -- illiteracy. It also
took to India's smallest state an innovative campaign that brings
enticingly near the dream of making India literate.
Says Pune-based Shively: Every adult has inborn qualities (and
intelligence). You only have to activate it.
This military-man now consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy
Services' literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic
wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army
of teachers.
Quite some work has already been done by TCS in Andhra Pradesh, with
Telugu. Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Bengali are the other
languages worked on. Gujarati is shaping up.
What's more, there's an added bonus: India could become functionally
literate in just three to four years time, if -- and this is a big if --
this method is vigorously implemented.
How does it work? Simple. The software giant TCS is using low-end
computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the
initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and
treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching
them.
Some rules: don't make an adult sit for tests. Don't get caught up with
writing, as the difficulties involved acts as a major disincentive.
Reading skills are most important. Adults can't be made to study
alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate.
Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years.
Illiteracy is a major social concern, says Shively.
Growing at 1.3% per annum roughly, literacy is creeping in just too
slowly to make a difference for India's efficiency. That's where, says
TCS, computers come in.
Software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups
free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by
words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
In the Goa Shipyard Limited, one of India's military-run building
centres, the concept recently drew interest. Sixty workers signed-up to
learn the most important of the 3 Rs. Andhra is however the state where
this project has made the most progress.
There's almost nothing the teacher has to speak. Everything is in the
software. So teachers can run 5-6 classes (one-hour) classes in a day,
without getting tired. You don't need a trained teacher (because of the
software), says Shively.
In 40-hours flat, an illiterate could be turned into a 'functional
literate', claims the major-general. This would enable one to read
simple newspaper headlines, check out bus directions, read signboards
and the like. Hopefully, such skills could be deepened over time.
Their ideas are put out on the site www.tataliteracy.com, and the TCS is
claiming a good response even from a few
