Interview:Facts and Fiction

Amidst many headlines calling the National Literacy Campaign a failure, Director of Non- Formal Education Center (NFEC), Baburam Poudel is keen to set the records straight. NFEC is the government body responsible for running the overall literacy, post literacy and alternative learning programs throughout our country.

They were also the ones spearheading the National Literacy Campaign. A seven year campaign to eradicate illiteracy recently came to an end and though there are many naysayers, Poudel calls it 'a success.' He sat down with Priyanka Gurung to talk about the matter.

Why do you think some people are suggesting that the national literacy campaign has failed?

There seems to be a misconception that 100% literacy was the aim of the campaign. Such round numbers only exist in mathematics. It's impossible to achieve that with a social phenomenon like education. Some people don't seem to understand that. They point out that there are still some groups of people who were not covered by the campaign. We too are well aware of this but you cannot claim that this national literacy campaign was a failure on that basis alone.

UNESCO states that more than 95% achievement in any social sectors will be considered a full achievement. In 1993, Kerala had run a similar literacy campaign. When they achieved 93% literacy it was declared a massive success.

We have already declared 17 districts free of illiteracy and more are bound to be declared in the coming weeks. Even the UNESCO monitoring report shows that out of six countries they shortlisted to congratulate for their efforts on increasing literacy, Nepal came in fourth. So our campaign is definitely a success.

So are you claiming that the target has been reached?

Over the years as we conducted classes all over the 75 districts, our head count of participants is very close to our 7.8 million target. I can guarantee that this number was met. However, the main question is how many graduated the classes? They are bound to be many dropouts as well. Some people from incredibly deprived background can't even afford to spare time to get some free education. With such scenarios in mind, we believe we may have 1.7 million more people to cover.

Still I want to clarify that the final data has not been collected yet. Some newspapers have their own estimates and label the campaign a failure. But the truth is that we will probably be getting the final data within these two to three weeks. Only then will we know where exactly we stand.

How many were you aiming to teach in the classes run by the National Literacy Campaign?

When we initiated this campaign, we had the responsibility of educating 51,07,300 people. Since this literacy program aims to cover a large mass of people, we primarily focused on the basics to cover the minimum requirements. We wanted to teach people to write their own names, read basic and commonly used words, as well as understand rudimentary math that is used on a daily basis. We acknowledge it's not much but literacy programs differ according to the context, time, place and situation. Besides this is only meant to be the beginning. We shall continue with post literacy programs and build up from there.

How was the process of running a literacy campaign all throughout the country?

Obviously half way through the National Literacy Campaign, we found that we were seriously lagging behind our goal. So just three years ago, we began all over again with a new commitment with Literate Nepal Mission. Here we collaborated with non government organizations, schools, community learning centers and local bodies. We were hosting a campaign on a large scale so we couldn't micro manage everything. Instead based on NFEC's policy we formed non formal education committee throughout the 75 districts and got to work. The committee, with help of various national level surveys, identified areas that had the most number of illiterate people and started their programs from there. They were also given the responsibility to pick one of our four most suited collaborators to run the program.

Our rule was to start classes as soon as we had 10 students in the Himalayan region, 15 in the hilly region and 20 in the Tarai region. The facilitator had to hold a SLC degree and they were overseen by local supervisors.

Were you sure that was the most effective way to go ahead with the campaign?

Yes. Considering that the operation was running on a large scale, this was the best way to devise these programs. Though I do wish we could have thoroughly trained our facilitators. We had more than 50,000 of them last year and at best we could only train them for 12 days. In the end, we had to even make do with three days training as well. This part of the process obviously needs to be improved.

You were also granted a generous budget of 1.6 billion rupees. Was the money utilized properly?

A billion rupees seems like a very big sum in aggregate but in comparison to our population of illiterate citizens, trust me, we only have about Rs 300 to 400 per head. Also the campaign was only allocated 1% of the nation's total education budget. And yes, the funds were properly utilized. 99% of the budget was given to the district education office that in turn paid all the parties involved in running the classes. They often were grass root, local organizations. We at NFEC, on the other hand, used the budget on national monitoring for the campaign.

Since I'm setting the record straight, I see some papers have over valued the budget allocated to us this year. Just so we are clear, we have been given Rs 36 crores for future projects.

What are the future plans for NFEC?

We still have the seriously marginalized and deprived groups to cater to. There might be a need to even pay them to bring them to our classes. Our plan is to give them access and at the very least, let them know that they can educate themselves with our classes. Further we are also interested in the differently- abled population. We'd also like to make sure that the illiteracy rate of that specific population is zero. Then there are the post literacy programs. We wish to continue with those as well.

What would you say are the biggest challenges in running such national level literacy campaigns?

Many Nepalis seem to take illiteracy as an educational issue when in fact it should be viewed as a developmental issue. But our government failed to see it as that. To be honest, this National Literacy Campaign of ours ran more like a program than a campaign because campaigns are run by the all bodies of a country. People don't say it doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of this department and that ministry. They get involved any way they can to push the possibilities of the campaign. However, sadly this was not the case while running this literacy campaign. We even had a written appeal from the Prime Minister requesting all the 21 ministries to get involved but there were no responses. I'm afraid it all circles back to the same thing – lack of political will and commitment.