Chapter 6 Literacy Policy and Practice: Issues of Language and Gender

6. Literacy Policy and Practice: Issues of Language and Gender

Education in mother tongue – this has been the national policy, particularly at primary and elementary levels, from the beginning. The National Policy on Education, 1968 and 1986 have been emphatic on this issue. In respect of ethnic groups like the tribals, the policy stressed the need to develop curricula and devise instructional materials in tribal languages at the initial stage, with arrangements for switching over to the regional language” (MHRD, 1986: 7).
6.1.1 Language in Adult Literacy
The language of teaching-learning (or medium of instruction) in adult literacy programmes has, as a conscious policy, been the mother tongue from the beginning. After TLC became the dominant approach and strategy, NLM adopted the approach of leaving the issue of language of instruction, to ZSS -- the reason being the language preference of learners, their numbers and feasibility of literacy primers development and transaction as the main considerations. Within a State there are many languages and dialects with or without a written script, spoken by sizeable number of people. There are cases of TLCs that used primers in 6-7 languages, as per their demographic composition and language preference of the learners. In some cases, learners not knowing regional language – language of administration, may like to become literate in that language. There are also districts with large tribal population, speaking a dialect that may or may not have a written script. In such cases, learners are initiated into literacy by using the first primer in the local dialect and switching over to regional language in second and their primers used in TLC. The reading materials in PL and CE stages are generally in regional languages.
6.2 Gender in Literacy Policy and Practice
6.2.1 Adult Literacy
The gender focus (to reduce gender gaps in access/provision, participation, achievement, etc., that have a more quantitative dimension) and addressing the gender bias i.e., age-old socio-economic and culturally embedded gender iniquities, have been the two distinct, but inter-related dimensions of India’s literacy movement since early 1990s. Gender focus was obviously warranted by their two-thirds share in illiteracy. The gender focus of TLCs (viz., paying greater attention in proportion to their number), however, did not come by a pre-design. It emerged from actual experience seen in the massive response of women who perceived the social sanction for their participation as an opportunity to realize their aspirations for literacy, empowerment and improvement. But the hurdles of gender inequities were pervasive, in the socio-cultural outlook, in the content of literacy primers about the role of women in society, in development, position within family, solidarity and collective assertion for their equality, and so on. The literacy movement was the first to address these issues of gender in early 1990s which lent an effective model for the gender focused primary education programmes later.
6.2.2 Gender Focus in Primary Education
In planning and implementation of adult literacy and primary and elementary education of 6-14 age children, gender has come to be treated as a critical issue not just because illiterates are nearly twice more among women as among men. It is more because of the age-old socio-cultural and educational discrimination and deprivation they had to endure. Thus, much before international commitment to girls education was expressed following World Declaration on EFA in 1990, policy environment in India recognized the criticality of educating girls if UEE were to be achieved. In addressing the gender inequities in education, educational planners and policy makers went beyond the gender focus of increasing educational opportunities for girls. In the education of women and girls, the equity edge needed to be even more shaper, as emphasized in NPE, 1986: “Education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of women. In order to neutralize the accumulated distortions of the past, there will be a well-conceived edge in favor of women… This will be an act of faith and social engineering… The removal of women’s illiteracy and obstacles inhibiting their access to, and retention in elementary education will receive overriding priority, through provision of special support services setting time targets and effective monitoring (MHRD, 1986: 6).
Since 1980s, all primary and elementary education programmes were designed to incorporate the gender focus and it gained greater momentum in 1990s in all externally funded primary education programmes in States like AP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, etc. However, the programme that took the gender focus to scale, has been DPEP, that initially had even its selection criteria as the low female literacy districts. In all these programmes the focus, as underlined in NPE, 1986, was on reducing gender disparities in enrolment, retention and learning. This intent has been totally imbibed in SSA, the national programme of UEE in EFA since 2000. Mainstreaming gender in every aspect of educational planning and implementation, backed by focused increase in educational opportunities for girls has become the national approach as evident in SSA. Some specific facets of the gender focus and its mainstreaming in SSA include:

• A comprehensive and well-designed package to make girls education totally free;
• Gender sensitivity in curriculum and its transaction; in teacher education; teachers in/pre-service trainings; and training/orientation of educational planners and administrators;
• Increasing the number of women teachers;
• Special campaigns on girls enrolment and special camps, bridge courses, alternative schools to cover un-enrolled girls for their mainstreaming in formal schools, etc (MHRD, 2001: 8-9; MHRD, 2003: 48-49).