Christabelle Noronha

In its fifty-first year of Independence, thirty eight per cent of India’s population is still illiterate, which is more than half the number in 1947, when India got its independence. There are still over 200 million illiterate adults in India who speak their native language, but can neither read nor write. Newspapers and television programmes regularly carry advertisements urging people to help in removing illiteracy in the country. Among the numerous NGOs and philantropists who are contributing their mite to removing illiteracy, we can now include Tata Consultancy Services, India's leading software services company.

The first step in tackling the problem in an organised, planned manner was taken by the National Literacy Mission. It produced well-researched teaching material in all Indian languages, to serve as a culture-specific aid in learning to read and write. The only drawback of the NLM programmes is that each module takes anywhere between eight to eighteen months to complete. At this rate of progress, it is estimated that it will be another 15 to 20 years before the problem of adult literacy is effectively addressed. Additionally, if the process of acquiring an education takes too long, many people tend to give up midway, because of the stress of trying to find the time to study while eking out a living.

This is where TCS comes in. Its pilot project in five villages in Andhra Pradesh aims to impart functional literacy in a matter of months. A brainchild of F.C. Kohli, the visionary who led TCS into the twenty-first century, the project promises to radically reduce the widespread illiteracy in the country by using information technology and an ‘appropriate’ form of education to educate the rural illiterate. The module is based on the material produced by the National Literacy Mission.

The TCS concept is built on the understanding that reading skills are the key to creating awareness in individuals; if a person can read, he or she can absorb information and knowledge in a written form. Therefore, instead of starting with the alphabet, it helps to build up a vocabulary of about 300 to 400 commonly used words first. Familiar words are the starting point for instruction. The choice of words is drawn from themes and situations that commonly occur in a given community.

Indian languages are phonetic, so, the introduction to the alphabets and the script is through the sounds that make up such words. Word games help to reinforce the recognition of these sounds and letters in different contexts. Asking learners to recognise familiar letters appearing on printed material such as posters, hoardings, newspapers and books, is yet another way of reinforcing what they have been taught.

The TCS project being implemented in Andhra Pradesh holds good promise for a country that is facing a widening gap between the literate and the illiterate. Spearheaded by P.N. Murthy, advisor,TCS, the project has several volunteers engaged in teaching people in rural Andhra Pradesh with the use of computers. The team has identified about 500 words in Telugu that are essential for an illiterate person to know before he or she can read. 

For the programme, the team chooses adults who already know and speak the language. These adult students are then taught the relationship between the sounds spoken and their printed or written form. Their native intelligence and the cognitive capabilities they use in everyday life helps them to grasp the connection between the two.

The next step is to segment the written words into composite characters that have a distinct sound. Starting with this introduction, word play is used to help them to construct new words with the composite letters they can now recognise. The logic of forming complex composite characters unfolds only towards the end. During this process, when attempts are made to read text that has not been seen before, there may be gaps, but common sense and general knowledge help the students to take an intuitive leap, and assign a sound to a graphic character they see. Such inductive experience can spur motivation and confidence in their native abilities to cope with efforts to become literate. The entire course in Telugu requires only eighteen computer-based training sessions.

Although the idea was conceptualised more than a year ago, initial experiments in Beeramguda, Medak District, on the outskirts of Hyderabad, started only in February 2000. According to Kesav Nori, chief information officer, TCS, ''Our observation has been that people who have gone through the class are able to read 10 words per minute. The United Nations organisation considers anyone who can read 30 words per minute as literate." Mr Nori adds, "The project has been relatively successful: out of every batch of 15 people, 14 have been able to read." The chances of the project succeeding are, therefore, 90 to10.

Reaching this technology into far-flung rural areas was an obstacle the team had to face. While placing stand-alone computers in remote rural areas is a possibility, it is fraught with problems. There was also the need to get regular feedback from the volunteers. It was therefore necessary to network such remotely placed computers. The wireless local loop communications technology came to the rescue. TCS used this technology to effectively build the communication infrastructure without laying physical lines. The instructional software has therefore to be developed within the constraint of having a small footprint in the computer so that low-end computers, which make small communication demands on the network, can serve the purpose.

The project, which is expected to be complete by April 2001, has been conducted in some 80 locations in Andhra Pradesh. TCS has set up a project office in Hyderabad and is now working with NGOs to take the project forward. This new concept can also be extended to several other languages. TCS has begun work on the Hindi and Tamil script and has started experimenting with Hindi in Mumbai in Maharashtra.  

Initial experiments in Beeramguda show that halting facility with reading can be acquired within four weeks, and that reasonable reading ability can be inculcated within eight to ten weeks. The class is constrained by the limitations of visibility of display of computer monitors. About 15 students can be accommodated in a class. The strength can be doubled by use of two monitors simultaneously. The duration of classes is determined by the attention span of the adults. It was found that they were willing to sit for two hours at a time. Classes can be run on alternate days, leading to six hours of instruction per week. Running two shifts a day at hours that are convenient for working adults as well as housewives, and conducting classes everyday of the week would cover four batches of students. That is, at a minimum, sixty adults can become literate in ten weeks time.

One site can therefore cover 300 adults in a year. To cover Andhra Pradesh in five years, where there are an estimated 30 million illiterate adults, would require 20,000 teaching sites. Covering all of India would require ten times as much resources and effort. If the project is successful and properly replicated in other parts of the country, 90 per cent of India’s illiterate population would read functionally in five years. The simple test at the end of the course is that the students should be able to read a newspaper.