IT capital hides an underbelly of illiteracy

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During the past 10 years when Bangalore grew as a boomtown of infotech it has also witnessed an increase in the number of people who cannot read and write. Bangalore has a comparatively high literacy rate of 88.48 per cent. But when Bangalore’s population jumped from about 65 lakhs to 96 lakhs the growth included an increased number of illiterates — 8,447 to be precise.

T K Anil Kumar, director, census operations ( Karnataka), said that literacy is a complex issue to understand. Experts said that though the number appears small, it in effect means more illiterate people are coming into Bangalore. Normally, as had happened elsewhere in the state — except Bangalore and Yadgir — the number of illiterates decrease as educational opportunities increase and a new literate generation enters the population.

A population growth of over 45 per cent indicates that migration accounts for about 30 per cent, pointed out Prof K S James, an expert in demography at the Institute for Social and Economic Change ( ISEC), Bangalore.

The natural growth is just about 15 per cent. “ Clearly there has been migration of illiterate groups.” There are large scale construction sites which attract migrant labourers.

“ It is surprising that Bangalore being a hub of knowledge shows pathetic performance on literacy,” said Prof R S Deshpande, director of ISEC. “ In Bangalore most of the corporate sector is happy with the cheap migrant labour. But rarely do they think about the children who are brought here.” Children migrating to Bangalore are often busy working or looking after their siblings, Deshpande added.

Child labour is still prevalent in Bangalore despite NGO inter vention and state- sponosored programmes. A nun who started a school in a poorer area of the city many years ago said she made the decision after seeing labourers going to work with their toddlers tied to a tree near the work area. Still there is no good institutional mechanism to look after labourers’ children.

There are policy issues too.

National Policy on Education 1986 and the Revised version of 1992 laid emphasis on strengthening school education as well as enhancing literacy rate.

Accordingly the National Literacy Mission was created and programmes were launched as part of Total Literacy Campaigns ( TLCs) across the Nation. “ It was literally a social movement,” said Dr Niranjanaradhya V P, fellow at the Centre for Child and the Law at NLSIU. It later got diluted and a project approach replaced this social movement with nontransparent initiatives supported by external agencies, he pointed out. “ We need to create reasonably good access to the children coming from marginalised communities to receive reasonably good quality education.” There should be a well- designed literacy programme for all who require it after 18 plus, connecting it to their day to day life. In metros like Bangalore the programme should be in more than one language.