Low female literacy impeding growth: PM

Noting that low female literacy was impeding growth, prime minister Manmohan Singh today launched a major initiative in the education sector saying all steps to empower women socially, economically and politically would be taken by the government.

Launching the Saakshar Bharat Mission here, Singh also announced that a National Mission for the empowerment of women would be set up soon.

While the Cabinet has already decided to amend the Constitution to provide 50% reservation to women in panchayats and local bodies, the Self Help Group movement would be "expanded by restructuring and revitalising the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh", he said.

Observing that about half of Indian women were still not able to read or write, Singh said "a National Mission for the empowerment of women is being set up."

Maintaining that female literacy was a force multiplier for all actions for social development, he said it had been observed that infrastructure development in economic sector and female literacy in social sector were "the two critical factors that impede India's steady climb to a higher and sustainable level of growth."

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, HRD minister Kapil Sibal and minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari were also present at the launch of the 'Saakshar Bharat Mission' which aims at making 70 million people, including 60 million women, literate in the next five years.

The mission would be implemented in 1.7 lakh gram panchayats spread over 365 districts which have low female literacy rate as also 33 districts affected by Left-wing extremism. Eighty five per cent of its beneficiaries would be women and nearly half of them would be from scheduled castes, tribes and minorities.

"Female literacy is absolutely necessary to empower Indian woman in her everyday struggle in dealing with multiple deprivation on the basis of class, caste or gender," the prime minister said.

Maintaining that the government would recast the National Literacy Mission "to make every woman literate in the next five years", Singh said "today we take the first step towards fulfilling that promise.

"But this is not a stand alone step. Our government is committed to doing all that is necessary for the social, economic and political empowerment of Indian women," he said.

Pointing out that one-third of India's population continued to be illiterate, he said "about half of our women cannot still read or write. The number of illiterates in India is the highest in all nations of the world."

He said the persistent illiteracy among women, SCs, STs, minorities and other disadvantaged groups was "a challenge that we must face head on. We must make our nation fully literate if we want to empower the average citizen and make rapid progress."

The prime minister said the government has launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Mid-Day-Meal programme, Rural Health Mission and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. He also referred to the Right to Information Act.

"Literacy is central to the success of all these programmes and initiatives. Female literacy especially so," Singh said.

He said the country has made good progress in improving literacy rate since independence. The literacy rate, which was a meagre 18% in 1950s, increased to 65% in 2001. The period from 1991 to 2001 saw the highest growth ever in a decade due to the National Literacy Mission.

"But we still have a long way to go," he said.

The prime minister said the government is committed to provide good quality education to every child in the country and asserted that "resource will not be a constraint".

Elementary education is within the reach of all children today because of the programmes started in last five years, he said. The enrolment rate has increased significantly as the drop-out rate has come down, he said.

"We need to renew the efforts of the 1980s and the 1990s when we were able to make a significant dent in the problem of literacy," Singh said.

The prime minister said the newly launched mission would use innovative strategies and technologies to impact sustainable literacy to millions of non-literates in a reasonable time period.