What are our priorities ? If it is employment for the millions who have been deprived so far, it is imperative that education and population control are kept on top of the list. To implement a development strategy which will achieve economic growth which ensures wide participation and distributive justice, it is essential to provide not only literacy, but effective post literacy, continuing education and skill development. Education needs to be pursued with emphasis on values, culture and the aspirations of the Indian people while responding to the need for unity, integration and understanding. It is necessary also to stimulate a sense of idealism, especially in the young.

An estimated 841,000,000, i.e., one in 5 persons in the developing countries, now goes to bed hungry. Some 150 million children are underweight, 230 million are stunted and 50 million children are wasted. Without improving household access to food through poverty reduction, which has only grown with the galloping population explosion, there can be no worthwhile development, however liberal a policy we may have. Every individual must have the physical, economic, social access to environmental hygiene, a balanced diet, safe drinking water and primary health care. How can we make this possible when half the nations people are not even literate ?

Every citizen must have access to education, skill development, character building, training in health, hygiene, nutrition, an awareness of citizenship and its responsibilities, and not only of rights. The IXth Five Year plan will hopefully bring about a further and renewed resurgence in the continuing education programme and continue the momentum generated by the National Literacy Movement. There has to be a political will as well to support the bureaucracy in this endeavour to make it a total success by the year 2005. The Media, and corporate sector must be roped in to treat this as a matter of the greatest urgency, not to be dealt with only by the government and voluntary agencies. It needs a continued involvement of all the people. Those who keep on grumbling and criticizing, need to contribute actively instead of just pointing a finger and telling others what to do.

By 1999 a hundred million Indians who were illiterate a decade ago will be able to read and write. By the year 2005 A.D there is hope for total literacy. The National Literacy Mission which was set up a decade back has been working towards achieving this through a mass movement. Ten million volunteers have been involved in this work, and every district of every state has worked towards this, some more than others, not only for basic Literacy but also for a post literacy follow-up to prevent regression. We still need to keep up the momentum and to continue to work towards an allround awareness and an education of quality.

The galloping masses of more and more people in our constantly increasing population, must and will have to be further curbed, and more effectively than it is been so far, if we are to swim and not to sink in the ensuing morass. Thomas R.Malthus in his essay on "The Principle of Population as it affects the future improvement of Society" which was published two centuries ago, in 1798, wrote "The period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived". When he wrote this, the global population was less than one billion. To-day it is over six billion. Even in the field of population control, literacy plays a vital role, both literacy and Women's empowerment, as has been seen in Kerala and in recent years in Tamilnadu also. Though education which was 18.33% in 1947 went upto 52.21%, the galloping population growth also mounted until we realized that there were 355 million non-literates in the country.

Democracies do not permit autocracy, and at the most there can be a carrot and strict approach. It is only by incentives or dedicated environment that the problem of mass non-literacy can be tackled and surmounted. There is a dichotomy of opinion on the methods by which literacy should be spread. Some voluntary organizations are of the view that it should be purely voluntary. They stress the success of the Kerala Literacy Movement achieved by voluntary efforts. They feel that this work must not be paid work.

On the other hand the National Literacy Mission has brought a hundred million illiterates to the brink of literacy which it hopes to achieve by next year. This has been by co-ordination of Government with voluntary involvement in a mass movement spread throughout the country. For a purely voluntary effort to succeed today one would need a Vinobha Bhave or Gandhiji, men of extraordinary stature who could inspire the masses by their example. The need for a good education for our people was stressed even in the early days of the freedom movement by Sri Aurobindo Ghosh while demanding Swaraj or Independence. Great Educationists like Mahatma Phule, Savitribai Phule, Ram Mohan Roy, Maharshi Karve, and Durgabai Deshmukh and in Hyderabad even my own grand mother Tyaba Bilgrami, opened numerous free schools for girls. Many have worked for this, but along with the population, illiteracy kept increasing.

Though a great step forward has now been taken, we still need a further and totally dedicated mass involvement along with sincere bureaucratic work. While it must be for total literacy, we need to keep on updating post literacy and continuing education for which the availability of Libraries is vital. Different spheres of further needs must be identified for suitable rectification and support, some of which I would like to stress.

The Shramik Vidyapeeth movement is already a growing and vital support system for both literacy and post-literacy as well as poverty alleviation through skill development. Our own Shramik Vidhyapeeth, Dharavi has been deeply involved in this work, and our very able director Smt. Chodankar is also present here today. Other areas that need attention are the following:

1. The large numbers of school drop-outs and weak students who are potential drop-outs.

2. Non-formal education for working children to stop working and therefore need to continue with non-formal education until the 8th Standard.

3. Continuing education and vocational training for youth and adults.

4. Literacy for women which is linked with national, social development.

SCHOOL DROP-OUTS

As President of the Society for Human and Environmental Development which works in the major slums of Mumbai and in villages and tribal areas of Maharashtra and some areas of Hyderabad, I found in 1982 that large numbers of school drop-outs were working in Mumbai with the brewers of illicit alcohol. We therefore started vocational training for them in several slums.

Today we are involved in an on-going tuition and coaching programme for weak students and potential drop-outs as one third of the students would otherwise leave school for lucrative work outside. The overburdened teachers with the pressure of an intensive curriculum, teach in classes in which there are sixty to eighty children, and find it impossible to make their teaching interesting. Very few slum children have parents who can coach them, and when paid work is available they drop out of school and remain semi-literate thereafter. Yet in the girls schools that we have in Hyderabad, we have an almost non-existent drop-out rate. These girls though very poor, are kept at home and are not sent out of the house to work. The school provides an occasion to meet and interact with others; and is therefore preferable to staying at home! Therefore if a parent sends a girl to school she remains there and get educated.

NON FORMAL EDUCATION

There are said to be about 30 million working children in India. However 75% have always worked in the rural areas in agriculture and have traditionally done so. 25% are working in the urban areas instead of going to school. In the big cities such as Mumbai they earn Rs.150/- to Rs.600/- a month. The H.R.D. Ministry's Non-formal education scheme is a very good one for such children to be educated if it is implemented properly.

Our society for Human and Environmental Development which has classes for such working children, has now got one third of the students upto primary school level, and have entered them into schools. An equal number could also enter primary school but will not do so because their earnings are desperately required for the sustenance of their family. Employees have continued to give these working children two hours off to attend our classes. These are held for 15 to 20 children in rooms given by members of the community, in areas where they work. Teachers are given special training for teaching these groups. The teachers attend further training sessions frequently, to upgrade systems and knowledge of the specialised teaching techniques required.

The problem which is being faced, and will continue to be faced is that of children who will starve if they don't work. They cannot be forced to do so, nor can they be abandoned. We are working on extending the teaching by another 3 years till they are brought-up to the level of the 8th standard. This will require four well-qualified teachers instead of just one. The alternative is to see that a parent or adult brother or sister gets work in place of the child, so that the child need not work and can be educated at school. The earnings will then be supplemented by another member of the family.

What needs to be improved urgently in the governments N.F.E (non-formal education) programme is for the teachers to be paid better. No well trained teacher will work for Rs.200/- a month. One has to pay adequately for professional services, or let it be understood clearly that the N.G.O has to take up the burden of making adequate payment to the teacher. It is difficult for an N.G.O to do so, and it is too vital a requirement if the nation is to have educated children, for this to be neglected. The follow-up of post literacy work is essential if the child does not join school. Either one must continue to educate the children for a further three years, or develop suitable courses for them through the open school system and enroll them in it.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Vocational training in skills for income generation, and continuing education are the next step. The Shramik Vidyapeeth movement is doing this. I know that our Dharavi S.V.P. has provided a large number of courses for the underprivileged women and youth of Mumbai, and that thousands of students who have availed of these courses are earning a reasonable livelihood. Similarly our society for Human and Environmental Development has trained over 24000 in its urban slum centres and rural programmes since 1983.

Vocational Training must be provided and diplomas awarded for skills acquired. N.G.Os could develop a placement service for jobs and help in setting-up small scale industries. Classes in entrepreneurship and in methods for establishing small scale industrial units should also be introduced. For adults, a better quality of Post literacy is required so that there is no loss of reading ability or regression. The women who also join vocational training classes, could continue with a post literacy project and incorporate the necessary learning along with skill development. This will again lead to income generation. Along with these we have a package for awareness generation with human resource and character development. These impart knowledge of citizenship, national values and ethics, health, hygiene and basic nutrition, human rights, gender justice, social and linguistic integration national unity, communal and inter-state understanding and harmony.

We have special sessions with youth to teach self expression by counseling in communication skills, and human resource development. We have done so in some of the worst riot affected slums where `SHED' (Society for Human and Environmental Developmental) has dedicated personnel working in this field, so that the youth are now able to live a normal, non-aggressive life with hope for a better future through education or skill development. Both in urban and rural projects we should also include the training of youth and women on the implications of the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India and the Panchyati Raj System, for good governance. As a trustee of both the National Foundation of India and the Population Foundation I might mention that they also promote such programmes of awareness of these amendments in several parts of the country.

THE LIBRARY MEMBER

If anyone is to be well-informed, and truly literate, the role of the Library movement must be emphasized. In two of our programmes, for the National Foundation in Rajasthan, and S.H.E.Ds Mumbai and village projects in Maharashtra, have introduced libraries and a mobile library van, in collaboration with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which takes books to most of our 42 Library centres. Libraries are expensive and most are terribly short of books to meet the community demand, but as a follow up for literacy it is invaluable. There is a very great need for newspapers and books, both to improve reading skills and for the acquisition of general knowledge and reading pleasure.

Every village and school should have a library, and every neighbourhood should start one. The students and youth who use them, are the ones who could help to run them. The National Book Trust brings out very inexpensive books in the languages of India, and could form the nucleus of each Library. Groups of interested officials, ordinary citizens, members of the public and the corporate sector could get together to set up libraries and provide training to those who can run them. Among the greatest joys of ones growing years is the world of books which is denied to the majority of our children. Citizens lobbies could form pressure groups to set up community libraries and also involve parents and teachers with them. Some how a symbiotic social contract has to be fostered between the private sector companies and resource poor areas for those excluded so far from the world of knowledge and learning, fiction and fact.

WOMEN, LITERACY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Literacy and skill development for women sets a whole social development pattern in motion. An awareness of gender justice leading to empowerment of women, in turn leads to the lessening of social evils. Women motivate the society for girls to be married at an older age, they work for anti-dowry movements, for spacing between childbirth leading to a healthier mother and child and also for population control. A few years ago, I had organized a two day workshop for Andhra women sarpanches and panches. Four hundred came and attended the workshop. Half were outstanding and even brilliant in their assessment of social needs and causes, and we found that these were all literate. the other half were accompanied by their husbands. These were neither literate, nor would they speak. They had been made sarpanches in name only as their husbands terms as sarpanch had ended, or the husbands had other work elsewhere and wanted power by proxy. These wives were just rubber stamps for their husbands. Education made all the difference to the women's ability.

Some years ago in S.H.E.Ds village projects the women would not come out to join in any activities although they worked all day in the fields. Thereafter they would stay in their homes. Since they have participated in adult literacy and vocational training courses along with our social development health and awareness generation, they have emerged with new confidence.

They now go in groups to demand water tankers from the district authorities when the water in the wells dries up in summer! They also take part in Panchayath matters and are useful and contributing members of their villages.

I conclude by stressing the great need for meaningful, multi-pronged, mass follow-up action for post literacy and the further implementation of total literacy in the IXth plan. We need a dynamic resurgence of action for Literacy with Ensuing Action for Progress L.E.A.P - with a leap towards quality education as the next step.