Officials shoo away neoliterates, bags literacy award

Officials shoo away neoliterates, bags literacy award
DHARMINDER KUMAR

NAWANSHAHR, SEPT 10: On Friday, on the occasion of Literacy Day, Vice-President Krishna Kant presented the Satyen Maitra Memorial Literacy Award to the Nawanshahr district of Punjab. It now turns out that the award -- given for implementing the Total Literacy Campaign -- may have been won by fradulent means: Graduates and other educated people allegedly posed as neo-literates.

``When I went for the test (conducted by the Himalayan Region Study and Research Institute for its evaluation project), I was told to go away. A matric-pass girl took the test in my place,'' alleged Jagir Kaur of Sujjon, the village ranked tops in the TLC. ``Very few non-literates who enrolled in the programme two years ago know anything more than how to sign their name.''

Amarjit Kaur of the same village corroborated Jagir Kaur's claims, alleging that local officials insisted matriculates and graduates, instead of neo-literates, take the test to make the district look good before officials visiting from Delhi.

And volunteer teachers admitted that several of them had masqueraded as neo-literates. Speaking to The Indian Express on the condition of anonymity, one of them said, ``The officials had to show good results from the village, and neo-literates would not have made the grade.'' Another volunteer recalled how, while taking the test for a neo-literate, she had deliberately dumbed down her answers to pretend she was a neo-literate.

Interestingly, the teacher-volunteers belong to the same village as the TLC targets. When this reporter asked them how they could defraud their own people, the answer was candid: ``The non-literates don't have the time to pursue the programme, and we lose motivation because we aren't paid for the job.''

The desperation of the authorities is also evident in Sujjon resident Jasbir Kaur's claim that she was enrolled in the programme despite being able to read and write ``because the officials had to enroll as many people as possible''.

Surinder Kaur was even more caustic. ``No serious effort was made to teach us,'' she said. ``Even the primers we'd been given were taken away on the pretext that we could not learn. I got them back just three days before the test. The officials who came from Delhi were genuinely interested in the cause, but the locals misled them,'' she added.

The story is repeated in ward number seven in Banga, which the Delhi-based institute ranked the best among wards on the basis of the tests. Bhajan Kaur, a resident of the ward, said that they too had been taught for only a few weeks and eventually, had to see matriculates and graduates take their examination for them.

Balbir Kaur of the same ward said, ``Anprahn nun taan parhna hi nahin ayia (Non-literates never managed to learn).'' She alleged that she was already a literate and was enrolled because authorities were short of non-literates.

Parminder Kaur, a volunteer from the ward, said that instead of the supposed neo-literate mothers, their school-going children were made to appear in the test.``We worked in vain. It did not make any difference. Among all I have taught, I am sure of only one,'' she said.

When asked about the allegations, Prem Singh, the key resource person of ward number seven, said ``rare cases of proxy learners'' had been detected. When told of the allegation that very few among the neo-literates in the ward could write a letter, he said that their aim was to make them aware of social issues; to make them read and write would require more time. He added that all the neo-literates in ward number seven could sign their names.

Dr G D Bhatt of Himalyan Region Study and Research Institute told The Indian Express that his report mentioned the proxy learners but denied that any ``large-scale bungling'' had taken place. He added, however, that the economic gap between literates and neo-literates was so little that it was difficult to tell one from the other. He said lower-level officials might have resorted to unfair means in the hope of getting rewards from the district administration.

Nawanshahr Deputy Commissioner Roshan Sunkaria, who is also chairman of the Zila Saksharta Committee, told this reporter that no such complaint had ever been brought to his notice.``The evaluation was done much earlier. Where had these people gone then,'' he asked. He added, ``We did not do anything. The research institute prepared the report.''