Illiteracy
Illiteracy means inability to read and write. It is the root cause of ignorance which frustrates all development efforts of the government and the community. Eradication of illiteracy in a country like India with so vast a population is undoubtedly a gigantic task. It is the social responsibility of all the literate people, men and women, to make some concerted efforts to remove illiteracy from society. The government of India has already undertaken some important programmes in this regard. To provide primary education for at least 70 per cent of the children of sex to ten years of age by the end of 1990, the government has launched a programme called the universal primary education (UPE) project. There is another educational programme in which each primary school in a community is to be regarded as a community learning centre (CLE). The objective is to involve increasingly the parents and the members of the community in the educational activities of the school. The adults and the out-of ?school youths will come to the school in the afternoon of in the evening after their vocations. The mass media, especially radio, TV and newspapers can play a vital role in making the people more conscious of the importance of literacy in the life of a nation. They can broadcast and publish regular features on various aspects of basic education, adult education and mass literacy.
