Govt unveils Literate Nepal Mission

KATHMANDU, Oct 14: While the government has already failed in ongoing campaign to eliminate illiteracy, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has unveiled yet another ambitious campaign "Literate Nepal Mission (LNM)" to drop the illiteracy rate of the country to zero by 2015.



The government has decided to spend Rs 4 billion for the campaign. [break]



The Non-formal Education Campaign (NEFC) which was launched in 2009 also targeted to eliminate illiteracy to meet the Millennium Development Goal by 2015.



According to NEFC estimates, only around 7.8 million people above the age of 15 were illiterate in 2009. However, only 48 percent of the illiterate were made literate during the campaign. NEFC had spent Rs 3 billion during the campaign.



"We admit that NEFC´s campaign only made 3.8 million literate over the last four years," said Baburam Poudel, director at NEFC.



However, the data produced by NEFC in 2009 was also questioned as the report from Achham district showed more literate people than the district´s total population.



Launching the new mission on Sunday, Education Minister Dinanath Sharma assured that the new three-year long mission would be more effective.



The Ministry of Local Development (MoFALD) and MoE would monitor the progress throughout the country, said Education Secretary Suresh Man Shrestha.

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