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Arivoli Iyakkam to be relaunched in Pondicherry

By Rajesh Nair

PONDICHERRY, DEC. 11 . The Pondicherry Government is set to relaunch Arivoli Iyakkam, targeting 1.8 lakh illiterates.

The decision to launch the second phase came in response to the President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam's call, in his address to the Territorial Assembly last month, to make Pondicherry cent per cent literate.

Another factor was a slump in literacy rate at the end of last decade.

The Minister for Education, K. Lakshminarayanan, told The Hindu that, "a meeting of the officials concerned was held after the President's visit. A nodal officer has been appointed and the programme will start very soon."

The Government was working out a plan to involve students, especially B.Ed students, in the programme, he said.

Strides in 1990s

The Union Territory made strides in eliminating illiteracy, especially in the early 1990s. The literacy rate, which was just 74.74 per cent in 1991, crossed the 80-per cent mark in 1994.

According to the Centre's norms, this is total literacy.

The Centre declared Pondicherry a total literate State. During the period, Pondicherry bagged the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's King Sezong Award for total literacy. The Centre's internal assessment put Pondicherry's literacy rate at 89 per cent in 1994.

However, the rate came down to 81.23 per cent in 2001.

According to a 2001 census, the literacy rate in Pondicherry was 80.70 per cent, 81.90 per cent in Karaikal, 95.70 per cent in Mahe and 73.70 in Yanam.

Female literacy

The census also showed that the female literacy rate was below the rate of 74.74 per cent in 1991.

According to the 2001 census, only 72.80 per cent of the women in Pondicherry were literate. The figure was 74.70 per cent in Karaikal, 68.50 per cent in Yanam and 94 per cent in Mahe.

Migration of workers

Mr. Lakshminarayanan attributed the decline in the literacy rate to "the migration of a large number of workers from other parts of the country in the early 1990s to Pondicherry for construction work. Most of them have settled down here."

The next phase of the literacy programme would cover those who have migrated to the Union Territory, he said.

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