The third phase of the literacy campaign kicked off on Sunday with the objective of making 612,912 people above the age of 15 literate. However, none of these schools seem ready. Each of these schools will have to run literacy classes for three months. [break]
“As far as I know, none of these schools began literacy classes on the first day of the campaign,” Bal Ram KC, director of the NFEC, said. “However, I hope all of these schools will be able to launch classes before March 15.” The NFEC has instructed all of these schools to complete the literacy classes before June 14.
The schools’ failure to start literacy classes on the first day of the campaign is largely due to the new policy adopted by the NFEC. This year, the NFEC has made it mandatory for all District Education Offices (DEOs) to find out the exact numbers, names and addresses of illiterate people in their respective areas before allowing the schools to start literacy classes. However, none of the DEOs have completed collecting data.
In the last two years, the NFEC had launched the literacy drive without having an exact data of illiterate people. “Previously, we relied chiefly on old data, which stated that there were 7.8 million illiterate people,” KC said. “From now on, we will have our own precise data, which will help draft future policies.”
The NFEC claims to have made 1.8 million people literate in the first year and one million in the second year -- something the government officials themselves find it hard to believe.
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has allocated only Rs 688 million budget this year for the drive. Previously, the MoF had allocated Rs 1.04 billion for each year’s literacy drive.
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