Southern States - Kerala   

`Kerala falling back into illiteracy'

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM AUG 7. In the absence of proper follow-up on the Total Literacy Campaign and the gains achieved by Kerala till the 1960s, the State is getting thrown back into illiteracy, said Dr. Michael Tharakan, senior fellow of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), here.

Delivering the first N. Narendran memorial lecture here today, Dr. Tharakan said the percentage of the illiterate was increasing at an alarming rate. There was an admitted level of 8 per cent illiteracy in the State. But to this should be added to the poor literacy levels of students in the primary and upper primary classes. Dr. Tharakan said studies had shown that the competency level of students in Std VIII in many parts was equivalent to that of students in Std III. This showed that the students were achieving little during the intervening period.

According to Dr. Tharakan, an interesting aspect of the literacy propagation efforts in Kerala in the post-60s was that they were more reformist than liberatory. On the contrary, the land reforms and other major socio-economic experiments of the pre-independence period and the initial post-independence decades had a liberatory effect, he said. He regretted the absence of any conscious effort to gauge the level of illiteracy in Kerala society today. Film-maker, T.V. Chandran, and Mr. N. Madhavan Kutty, Editor (Kerala), The New Indian Express, also spoke. at the meet convened to mark the first death anniversary of N. Narendran, reporter of The New Indian Express.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Kerala Govt. undecided on power tariff
• Attappady ryots migrating to Tamil Nadu
• Curious turn to Suryanelli case probe
• Autogas stations in State soon
• Parties, communal bodies `hijack' SHG concept
• Centre urged to declare Kerala drought-hit
• DYFI to lay siege to investors' meet
• `Orthodox faction fomenting feud'
• `Mystical Malabar' tomorrow
• `Kerala falling back into illiteracy'
• Sops for infrastructure in tourism sector

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu