Rogers 2002

Compare, Vol. 32, No.
2, 2002
Post-literacy and Second-Stage Adult Learning in India
ALAN ROGERS, School of Continuing Education, University of Nottingham
ABSTRACT This paper surveys the work done in post-literacy in India as part of the
National Literacy Mission. Created as a second stage of activity after the initial Total
Literacy Campaign, the tensions between the radical and the bureaucratic elements
within the Total Literacy Campaign are replicated and indeed ampli ed in the post-
literacy stage. The main issue is the aim of post-literacywhether it is for the further
development of literacy skills or the preparation for some future activityand if the
latter, what that activity should be (self-help group, income generation, continuing
education, independent learning etc.). This uncertainty means that post-literacy has
become an arena of struggle between individual and group goals, between literacy
learning and development goals, between instruction and independent learning; and it
is therefore less effective than it could be. Based on an extensive review of the literature
and on many interviews and discussions during a series of visits to India between 1993
and 2001 (two of which, in 1993 and 1998, were speci cally to explore the eld of
post-literacy in preparation for two research reports), the paper outlines some of the
concerns being voiced in India about this aspect of adult literacy learning.
The quotations come from interviews and eld notes, mostly made in 1998. Interviews
were conducted by myself with a researcher or practitioner from India in attendance;
most were in English but some were in local languages and used translation. In many
cases, we agreed that a generalised description of the interview would be provided
rather than individual names.
Post-literacy is an area of adult literacy provision in the context of developing societies

which has been attracting considerable attention recently. Both at evaluation stage and
at project and programme development stage, it has been suggested that without some
form of post-literacy, much of the efforts of the initial literacy learning programmes will
be less than effective (DFID, 1994 and DFID, 1999 provide bibliographical references
to much of the most recent literature on post-literacy). In India, for the past ve years,
post-literacy has been the major concern of the governments National Literacy Mission
(NLM) following on the completion in many districts of the initial Total Literacy
Campaign and the demand from the eld for a programme of some kind of provision at
the next stage. In order to understand the theory and practice of post-literacy in India,
we need to see it in the context of both the Total Literacy Campaign which it follows
and Continuing Education which is what it leads into.
ISSN 0305-792 5 print; ISSN 1469-3623 online/02/020149-3 1

2002 British Association for International and Comparative Education
DOI: 10.1080/0305792022014315 6
150 A. Rogers
Total Literacy Campaign
The Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) was started in 1988, replacing the National Adult
Education Programme of the previous government. It is a national programme managed
by the National Literacy Mission in Delhi (Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Directorate of Adult Education). But the programme itself is delegated to the districts
under the immediate control of the District Collectors. The staff of NLM exercise great
exibility. They say that, within limits set by a central committee established to
administer the system of permissions, it does not rule anything in or out (NLM Director
General, Delhi, 1988). Districts are empowered to manage their own literacy programme.
There are two main elements in the Total Literacy Campaign. The rst is a campaign
element provided in conjunction with a national NGO, Bharat Gyan Vidyan Samiti
(BGVS). Through a programme of cultural events (processions, street dramas, festivals
etc.), a mass interest is built up. BGVS is very skilful at this, having built on its early
experience in Kerala and having developed its expertise in large nationwide activities.
The second is a teaching-learning programme that can be spread over six to 12 months.
The teaching is done by volunteers (mainly young school or college students) with small
informal groups meeting anywhere (sometimes as few as three persons but generally ten
or so). They use a set of three primers, which may be the national primers, or new
primers developed locally in the district and designed to meet local circumstances and
local languages. These local primers are, however, approved by the national committee
in Delhi (summaries of the extensive literature on the National Literacy Mission can be
seen in Daswani & Shah, 2000; Singh, 1999; Karlekar, 2000; Shah, 1999; Mathew,
2000).
From the start, there was tension between these two elements. BGVS has said that it
believed from the outset that adult literacy needs to be an ongoing programme. The
campaign element to them was simply a stratagem to mobilise commitment and develop
awareness, designed to create a long-term participatory peoples literacy movement,
not a process to eradicate illiteracy through a single teaching-learning course (BGVS
interviews, 1993, 1998, 2000). NLM on the other hand saw the Total Literacy Campaign
as a time-bound programme designed to eradicate illiteracy from India by 2005 (NLM
interviews, 1993, 1998).
Because of the involvement of BGVS, the Total Literacy Campaign has been
characterised by a high rhetoric of changing society. Its promotional literature argues that
literacy will result in increased critical analysis of developmental targets and perform-
ance, that it will bring about local participatory action from the bottom up rather than
local responses to the top down development plans. Both BGVS and the Government
NLM promote these ideals; each district is encouraged to write primers particularly
adapted to local developmental needs. And it is alleged by several evaluators that this
raised the expectations of the Total Literacy Campaign participants. In many of the
districts, literacy groups were provided with pre-paid postcards to write to the District
Collector demanding access to government services and other developmental pro-
grammes to facilitate change in their own villages ( eld visits to Chittoor District in
Andhra Pradesh and Banswara District, Rajasthan; interviews with National Institute of
Adult Education staff, Delhi)
But over the past ten years, the NLM has become more bureaucratic and less radical.
This has left the Total Literacy Campaign in the eld divided. Some districts follow the
radical route of BGVS; others follow the more bureaucratic route of NLM and, locally,
the majority of the State Literacy Resource Centres. The former look for indicators of
Post-literacy and Adult Learning in India 151
social transformation, the latter for statistics of the numbers made literate. It is also
alleged that there is growing disillusion and even hostility between the two camps, the
radical element feeling that the government agencies have betrayed their former vision
(Tamil Nadu State Resource Centre interviews). Many of the participants in Total
Literacy Campaign, it has been suggested, feel let down; their aspirations, having been
raised by the campaign element, have not been met. NLM has become (according to its
critics) mere technicalism (interviews with TLC eld staff in Tamil Nadu 1993, 1996).
The reasons for the change in the government stance are understandable. On the one
hand, there is the issue of public accountability. NLM spends public money on clearly
stated goals (to reduce national illiteracy statistics), and this expenditure has to be
accounted for. The National Literacy Mission was set up within the context of a national
programme called The Five Technology Missions which India set before itself and
before the international community. The nation has publicly declared itself committed to
national improvement in these ve areas, of which literacy is one. It needs to honour that
pledge.
Such a pledge, it is felt by government staff, calls for a national uniform programme
with prescribed outcomes rather than participatory approaches in which localised
literacies are facilitated and the participants determine the outcomes. Thus the objectives
are stated as being the standardisation of material and the achievement of pre-
determined levels (NLM, 2001, p. 19). There are several reasons for this. First, there are
the numbers that need to be covered. Locally determined programmes, it is argued by
some practitioners and policy-makers, will not make an impact discernible in national
numerical terms. Secondly, there is a (national and international) political issue, the
necessity for politicians to please aid agencies and the electorate by being seen to be
achieving something.
There are other reasons why the Total Literacy Campaign changed its nature. With
scaling up from an experimental base in Kerala, through a number of selected districts
which took up the programme enthusiastically, to a much wider band of more lukewarm
districts, it has proved impossible to maintain the challenge of radicalism. Local of cials,
under pressure to engage in the Total Literacy Campaign, approached it with more
caution than the rst advocates did. Secondly, it would appear that many of the volunteer
teachers were neither capable nor adequately assisted to handle location- and require-
ment-speci c literacy learning, and certainly not critical literacies of the Freirean kind
that BGVS was advocating. They demanded clear technical guidance rather than trying
to cope with uncertain, unclear and unexpected participant demands. Apart from this, the
radical elements also view the issue of local literacies which much modern scholarship
has raised (Street, 1985, 2001; Barton, 1994; Barton et al., 1998; Barton et al., 2000)
with some scepticism. At least one leading gure in adult literacy suggests that
Romanticism about local literacies can legitimise the current exploitative set-up
(Mathew, 1998). It is not likely to challenge the existing dominant paradigms.
There is one further element in this progression. The rst Total Literacy Campaign
districts excluded local NGOs from partnership, even those which had established
long-standing and apparently effective adult literacy training programmes. The NLM in
Delhi did not decide this: as usual, they left it to the districts to determine what role, if
any, local NGOs should play in the Total Literacy Campaign, for they recognised that
the strength of local NGOs varied in different parts of the country (it is often suggested
that NGOs are not strong, for example, in basic education in the Hindi belt states).
Equally, on the other side, few local NGOs were enthusiastic about joining a programme
where the facilitators were to be unpaid volunteers and for which consequently there was
152 A. Rogers
relatively little funding available. Each district established its own support committee,
the Zilla Shaksharata Samiti (ZSS), and registered it as an NGO, to facilitate the ow
of funding without excessive bureaucracy. Alongside this was the local branch of BGVS.
Locked into BGVS and increasingly bureaucratised, the Total Literacy Campaign failed
to tap the potential of the NGO movement in India, and the NGO movement initially
held itself aloof to a large extent.
But as the local tension grew, non-BGVS districts tended to involve local NGOs as
a counterweight to the local branch of BGVS. And in some cases, the Total Literacy
Campaign began to predominate in the NGOs activities: as one NGO reported: The
TLC programme is now our biggest programmemuch of our other programme of
income-generation has been merged into TLC at the post-literacy and continuing
education stages (Tamil Nadu NGO interview, 1998). Those local NGOs that came in,
drawn in by the non-BGVS administrators at state level (especially the State Resource
Centres established under the NAEP), tended to be the less radical NGOs. They kept the
rhetoric of social transformation, but their concept of development was of strictly
controlled and limited change to achieve goals and objectives centrally determined
(health, water supply, family planning, increased production etc.). One NGO which
prides itself on its radical approach (COAST, 1997) says that the aim of all its work in
literacy is to nd a way to help non-reading people to become normal reading
people as quickly as possible (Chowdhury, 1996). The dominant paradigm of literacy
as a de cit rather than a socio-cultural activity (Street, 1984; DFID, 1999) has a strong
hold on even the radical NGOs in India. They often feel that the learners need to learn
to read and to write what the NGO has chosen rather than what they want to read and
write. Once again, the participatory elements of the initial Total Literacy Campaign have
become watered down to the achievement of pre-determined literacy goals. It is
interesting that the more radical literacy movementsincluding REFLECT (interview
with Action Aid staff in Delhi, 2001) which operates in a number of states such as
Orissahave developed their programmes of literacy learning independently of and on
different models from those of the Total Literacy Campaign.
India having thus launched on a national mass programme through a campaign model,
it was inevitable that the radical element promoting critical literacies would not be
tolerated for long. It can be argued that governments of all hues, especially at local level,
do not willingly tolerate critical literacy programmes; they prefer large-scale uniform
literacy programmes that limit critical literacy. The main aim of the of cials at all levels
in India has thus come to be literacy statistics. Delhi has increasingly demanded from the
eld reports that stress statistical information above case studies of social change. In
practice, the large majority of the of cial providers of the Total Literacy Campaign at
state and district level believe that the TLC exists only to enhance the national and local
literacy statistics rather than to lead to social change (this is based on interviews with
state of cials and others in eight states, 19932001). The dif culty of measuring on a
comparable basis the empowerment of the people has led in large measure to the
abandonment of the radical element from the Government NLM programme, whatever
rhetoric remains. The discrepancy between what the of cials say about the freedom of
the Total Literacy Campaign participants to engage in their own developmental activities
and the concern which these of cials have for pre-determined literacy learning goals is
often clear from their reports and from their conversations.
It is these concerns which account for those cases of political interference in the Total
Literacy Campaignthe closure of a local newspaper for neo-literates in one state ( eld
visit, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, 1998); the pressure on more than one District
Collector by Members of Legislative Assemblies and other state of cials to remove the
implementation of the Total Literacy Campaign in their districts from local NGOs
because they feared criticism from literacy participants (Tamil Nadu eld visits); the use
of popular movements started by the literacy campaign for political ends, of which the
arrack prohibition movement in Andhra Pradesh, taken up by the Telugu Desam Party,
is the best known example (see Karlekar, 2000, pp. 81126). These all sprang from the
reluctance of elected and appointed of cials to accept an increased level of critical
literacy. But on the whole the Total Literacy Campaign is less notable for its level of
political interference than for the absence of such pressure on a wide scale. The
bureaucrats point to this fact to suggest that their policy of minimising the radical
element of the BGVS awareness-raising campaign is the right policy for effective
literacy training.
Over the past ten years, there has been growing hostility at local level between these
two elements. For example, it is suggested by the Tamil Nadu State Resource Centre that
60% of the districts in that state are BGVS districts, 40% are of the less radical form;
and it is signi cant that BGVS has established a rival State Resource Centre of its own.
The controversy at eld level can be real:
BGVS and their network is closely linked to a leftish ideology, as one State
of cial complained. They dont want to work with other NGOs or organisa-
tions, they want to be unique. There is no chance of any other kind of
innovation. They dont understand the eld problems. They have a narrow
view, opposed to the bureaucracy. They dont understand the problems of the
people. For example, BGVS in M brought out more than 100 neo-literacy
books but they cannot be read because the language is too dif cult, although
the content came from the people. They dont allow anyone else to evaluate
these books. They were sent to all Districts [even non-BGVS Districts], and
this was seen as an achievement of BGVS. (Field notes, Tamil Nadu State
Resource Centre, 1998)
BGVS and its supporters in the eld, on the other hand, complain that the bureaucrats
have lost their vision, that the Total Literacy Campaign which the authorities promote
is top-down, imposing material on the people and limiting their eld of activities
(Mathew, 2000, pp. 3340).
To summarise, NLM/TLC started off with a high rhetoric of changing society
(transformational literacy). BGVS and others in the eld support this approach. But
NLM has become more bureaucratised and lost this vision, for understandable reasons.
In the eld, an alliance has at times been forged between the state of cials responsible
for the Total Literacy Campaign and some local NGOs. But BGVS and some of the eld
workers have retained this vision. The Total Literacy Campaign in India, then, has
become characterised by a tension between the major partners, and this has spilled over
into the post-literacy phase.
Post-literacy
Recent discussions about the nature of post-literacy (DFID, 1994, 1999) have not yet had
a major impact on the design and implementation of post-literacy in India. Post-literacy
in much of India is still seen in terms of a special phase of instruction, although its goals
vary widely. When the National Literacy Mission came to plan post-literacy, it urged the
districts to adopt a campaign model similar to that of the Total Literacy Campaign
154 A. Rogers
using volunteer (mostly unpaid) teachers with prescribed teaching-learning materials. It

was therefore inevitable that the con ict between the two approaches to adult literacy,
which emerged during the initial Total Literacy Campaign phase, should have become
heightened at the post-literacy stage. Thus post-literacy is seen by some of those
involved as a learning stage which relies, like the rst stage, on the supply of appropriate
materials (textbook primers and additional reading matter). On the other hand, post-
literacy is seen by others as a process of locally determined action leading to social
transformation, in which literacy materials are felt to be less important than the processes
of group formation and decision-making. The tension is considerable.
Today, from the point of view of the centre, the post-literacy phase of the National
Literacy Mission (like the Total Literacy Campaign) is technically completed, and the
staff there are concentrating on mopping up districts which have failed to perform
adequately and on developing a programme of continuing education. However, post-
literacy programmes are still proceeding in many districts.
Post-literacy was not planned at the start, although there were several early statements
about the importance of some form of provision after the initial phase was completed.
Post-literacy was bolted on at a later stage. Once the rst Total Literacy Campaign
districts had completed their initial training programme, pressure came from both above
(UNESCO) and from below (the literacy learners) for decisions about what should
happen next. The fact that these two pressures did not matchUNESCO being more
concerned with relapse than with social transformation, while the people were more
concerned with changing their lives than with learning literacy skillsincreased the
divide between the radical and non-radical elements in the post-literacy programme.
Experiments
Initially post-literacy provision was sanctioned on an ad hoc basis as districts nished the
Total Literacy Campaign. There was no clear plan, as NLM admit (interviews with NLM
staff, Delhi, 1993, 1998). The rst districts to conclude their Total Literacy Campaign
programmes were given freedom to experiment. Some launched straight on to a ve-year
Continuing Education programme based on a UNESCO programme of improving the
quality of life. NLM awaited the reports on these experiments with great interest and
some impatience. But these programmes indicated that the initial Total Literacy Cam-
paign programmes had not enabled the participants to achieve the levels of literacy skills
required to engage in such a continuing education programme, and that a further period
of teaching lasting some 12 years was needed using further learning materials of a
primer kind. Several districts launched pilot schemes of this kind.
This caused delays in NLM nalising a coherent approach to post-literacy; but by
1995 Guidelines for Post-Literacy were laid down (NLM, 1995). It has become normal
in the National Literacy Mission for such Guidelines to be issued after a good deal of
the work has been done, an approach to educational planning which found justi cation
on the grounds that the more innovative districts will pioneer and pilot new approaches
and the less creative districts will need to learn from these experiments. Others however
criticise it on the grounds that governments should lead from the front, not follow the
eld (interviews with various practitioners in the eld).
Post-literacy in the Indian Total Literacy Campaign thus gradually became a more
formalised programme. As with the Total Literacy Campaign, a locally diversi ed
participatory programme is becoming more of a national, centralised, uniform and
bureaucratic programme with relatively little of its revolutionary element left intact
(Mathew, 2000). It is intended to last for either one or two years, and consists of cially
of a period of six months of unpaid volunteer teaching using a fourth literacy primer, to
be followed by a period of six or 18 months of self-reading based on village libraries.
Many of the NLM staff are still hesitant about this programmewhether it is necessary
at all; whether instead the initial literacy programme should be expanded to include a
further period of teaching using a fourth primer; whether the post-literacy stage should
last for one year only; or whether it should be abolished altogether and the participants
proceed straight from the initial TLC stage to continuing education. There is strong
pressure to try to bring a coherent planning to all the three elements of the NLMthe
TLC, the post-literacy stage and the continuing education stage. All new districts
submitting plans for any further phase of the National Literacy Mission have now been
requested to submit plans for all three phases at the same time.
The Post-literacy Stage as a Battle eld

The problem that lies behind these doubts is uncertainty about the nature and purposes
of post-literacy. There has been intensive debate, accompanied by some experimental
programmes in the eld. The latest statement by NLM suggests six different objectives
for a post-literacy programme which has been shortened to one year: the consolidation
of literacy skills, upgrading for drop-outs, improvement of literacy skills to self-reliant
reading levels, enabling literacy learners to use literacy in their daily lives, skill training
for economic self-reliance, and institutionalisationi.e. group formation which seeks
both to promote collective action (self-help groups) and to facilitate entry into continuing
education (NLM, 2001, p. 22). Such a comprehensive set of objectives indicates the
uncertainties that lie behind the purpose of the post-literacy stage. Indeed, as Mathew
points out (Mathew, 2000), post-literacy has become a battle eld in which the tensions
which already exist within the Total Literacy Campaign have come to take acute form.
A number of divergent views have emerged.
First, there is the question whether the post-literacy stage is intended to achieve
diversi ed learner goals or pre-set governmental goals. Is the purpose of post-literacy
to meet the very different local interests of the learners (in groups, communities or
individually) aroused by the rhetoric of the Total Literacy Campaign, or is it to promote
national goals of literacy levels? The core of this, of course, as with all development
programmes, is whether literacy (including post-literacy) is something which is to be
provided from the top down or whether it is to be acquired from the bottom upwhether
it is government literacy or local literacies (see Street, 2001, pp. 208211). It has
been argued by a number of those who are close to the NLM that the Mission staff are
not tackling this question because it is impossible to plan in a coherent way for all the
different learner concerns aroused by the Total Literacy Campaign, that it is impossible
to create a match between of cial perceptions of mainstreaming the literacy learners and
the diversity of learner interests. The key issue is, who controls the programme, who
decides what is to be taughtthe providers or the literacy learners?
A second uncertainty that has emerged is whether the post-literacy stage looks
primarily backwards to the initial teaching of literacy skills in the TLC phase (in which
case it will seek to develop literacy skills further through a further period of instruction),
or whether it looks forward to some future activity (in which case it will seek to
encourage the participants to engage in capacity building for that activity). Clearly
post-literacy in India is seen as a bridge between the Total Literacy Campaign and some
future programme; but whether its primary purpose is backward-looking or forward-
156 A. Rogers
looking is unclear, and this leads to some confusion about the activities to be included
within the post-literacy programme itself. The NLM says this should be left to the
districts to determine in the light of their own local needs.
Associated with this is the question as to whether post-literacy consists of literacy
alone or whether it has a wider curriculum. If post-literacy looks back to the initial Total
Literacy Campaign, it will tend to concentrate on literacy learning alone; if it looks
forward to some future activities, it will call for a wider curriculum. Some practitioners
(especially in some of the State Resource Centres such as Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi)
are urging that the post-literacy stage should go beyond the development of literacy
skills, that a wider curriculum should be used rather than simply literacy learning. Their
aim is to develop packages to present to the learners, especially to develop awareness of
issues such as health, environment, local government involvement (panchayat raj) etc.
Such a programme would have many learning inputs, structured and unstructured,
written, visual and oral. The straight literacy teaching programme which forms the heart
of the post-literacy primer is being challenged by calls for a curriculum which is relevant
to the learners more than to the government, even if this will mean that in some, perhaps
many, post-literacy centres, there is relatively little literacy going on: Is this [the
post-literacy programme] the literacy which the Government of India wants to show to
international bodies such as UNESCO? The learners do not care two hoots whether this
is internationally comparable or not: they want their own learning programme much
wider than literacy ( eld worker, Delhi). Learner relevance, they argue, should be
exible: it is the learners who should decide whether what they are being asked to learn
is relevant or not.
A third uncertainty concerns the nature of the future that post-literacy leads to
whether it is social transformation or a programme of further directed learning. On the
one hand are those practitioners who see the goal of post-literacy as being a process of
social transformation along Freirean lines. Some of these view it as controlled develop-
ment through linking literacy groups to existing development programmes, especially the
Integrated Rural Development Programme. Others see it as the process of forming new
social action groups that will determine their own developmental goals. The develop-
ment of critical literacies, which Freireans have argued for over many years, is on the
agenda for many literacy practitioners in India in both government and NGO agencies.
On the other hand are those practitioners who suggest that the future that post-literacy
leads to is further planned learning, a formalised curriculum, often equivalent to formal
schooling. The aim of all post-literacy programmes for them then is to prepare the
participants for this further study stage.
This tension expresses itself in the eld by the concentration of some post-literacy
programmes on group formation, especially self-help groups or other forms of social
action groups, while other post-literacy programmes concentrate on the development of
Continuing Education Centres to provide opportunities for structured further learning.
A fourth issue is whether post-literacy is intended mainly for individual learners or for
groups? On the one hand, there is an approach to post-literacy which sees it as primarily
being to help groupsto encourage literacy learning groups where they exist to enter
upon new activities, or to help to form new groups where the literacy classes have not
survived. On the other hand, there is a different approach to post-literacy which sees it
as primarily addressed to individuals, reading for their own pleasure and pro t, or
reading to learn new things which can be applied to their lives. Again uncertainty here
is leading to confusion about the kind of activities which post-literacy programmes
engage in.
The debates are often heated, involving as they do practitioners at district and
NGO levels, central and state government of cials, the staff of the State Resource
Centres, as well as many independent evaluators or materials developers and trainers of
literacy practitioners. National, state and local bodies nd themselves participating in
such discussions. Bodies such as the Indian Adult Education Association promote
considerable discussion, as do those such as BGVS and its associated organisations.
In the course of these debates, the understanding of the Total Literacy Campaign itself
is being challenged. The TLC was designed (like most UNESCO literacy programmes)
to achieve the level of independent self-reliant learnerspersons who can continue to
study through village libraries and other sources of literature on their own without the
help of a facilitator. But as the various post-literacy programmes developed in the eld,
the initial Total Literacy Campaign and the post-literacy stage have come to be seen by
many practitioners and planners as a prelude to planned further learning in groups with
teachers (i.e. classes), to Continuing Education. UNESCOwhich has had a profound
effect on all Asian adult literacy programmes through its Regional Of ce in Bangkok
and its joint materials production and training programmeshas never resolved this
dilemma. It has for many years talked about the need for lifelong continuing education
in groups with instructors (rather like adult schools), while at the same time promoting
the goal of independent and self-reliant learners without a facilitator. In India the idea
of developing independent readers is gradually giving way to the idea that lifelong
continuing education will be needed for all the Total Literacy Campaign graduates.
We can summarise the major tensions within the post-literacy phases of the National
Literacy Mission in India in the diagram (Figure 1):
FIG. 1. Tensions in Indian post-literacy.

158 A. Rogers
The planning for post-literacy in India has been hampered by these tensions. The
follow up programme (what is commonly referred to as post-literacy and continuing
education) was not worked out clearly (Ghosh, 1997b, p. 1).
The PLC [Post-Literacy Campaign] did not take off in India because there was
a lack of conceptual clarity. TLC was very intensive; when it came to an end,
there was the question, where do we go from here? Post-literacy was bolted on,
not planned from the start. We only had the JSNs [village libraries] in mind
but this was not tted into the picture. The JSNs were a dead horse. Neither
NLM nor BGVS were clear, either at headquarters or on the ground. Then
came pressure, from above from UNESCO and from below from the learners
and the volunteers. There was a clash of aims in post-literacy. The aim of TLC
is to lead to self-reliance; but the aim of post-literacy is to lead to further
learning in continuing education. (Staff member, NLM, Delhi, 1998; there
were more abbreviations in the original, I have extended some to make for
greater clarity)
As other staff in the National Literacy Mission in Delhi indicated: The aim for most
post-literacy participants is independent reading; for others, it is continuing education
( eld notes, Delhi, 1998). One local programme describes its post-literacy stage as from
guided learning (TLC) to self-help (Literacy Mission 21.13, 1997, pp. 2023).
Continuing Education
It is in this context that the third stage of the National Literacy Mission has emerged,
Continuing Education. This too came at a late stage, bolted on to the National Literacy
Mission after the TLC and post-literacy stages had developed. When we thought we had
got post-literacy clear, then we found that we did not know about continuing education,
and that made post-literacy weak because we were not sure what we were aiming at. But
now we have a better understanding of both post-literacy and continuing education.
There is more clarity through the development of Continuing Education Centres. These
are at the heart of post-literacy: Post-literacy should become a preparatory stage for
continuing education and be merged with it (NLM staff member, Delhi, eld notes,
1998). The NLM argues that the only justi cation for a separate stage of post-literacy
is that a bridge is needed between the level achieved at the nishing point of the Total
Literacy Campaign programme and the level needed to start continuing education.
The key to the continuing education stage is the Continuing Education Centres to be
established to meet the needs of the local population, one centre for some 500
neo-literates or for a population of between 1500 and 2000. Some of these will be based
on the existing JSNs (local libraries), but others will be newly established. These will be
staffed by paid local facilitators (preraks) who will be trained for their work (most of
these will be separately recruited rather than drawn from the volunteers). Clusters of
about eight or ten TLC centres will have one continuing education centre. Some 15
CECs will be supported by Nodal Continuing Education Centres which will be better
equipped and supported and have at least one full-time staff member (Reddy, 1995).
BGVS is advocating Block and District CEC Resource Centres, but NLM suggest that
the existing of ces of the Block TLC Co-ordinator and the District TLC Co-ordinators
will be adequate for this purpose, and in this NLM is likely to be supported by the state
authorities. Continuing Education Centres can be run by the existing local literacy
committee (ZSS) or by NGOs or by other bodies such as universities etc. At the state
level, the CEC programme can be supervised by the State Resource Centre, the State
Department of Adult/Non-Formal Education, the State Literacy Mission or even the
State Open School which largely concentrates at the moment on secondary education by
distance learning but which, it is asserted, can be adapted to meet new challenges
(NLM staff, Delhi, 1998). It is important to note that in the continuing education stage,
local variations at state level will be taken seriously. Kerala and Karnataka have already
developed different structures from other areas. In Andhra Pradesh, localities are enabled
to establish Village Education Committees with a legal status to run the post-literacy and
continuing education stages when they have met certain conditions. These will be
responsible for the preraks, and funding will come to the local committees partly from
local sources and partly from NLM. Accountability is established by requiring that the
head teacher of the local primary school is the secretary of the village education
committee (although it is not clear how well this will function when so many primary
school teachers in that state as elsewhere are not resident in the village).
The activities of the continuing education centres are to be determined locally: as
NLM says, the skys the limit so long as they resource these activities themselves
(interview with NLM staff, Delhi, 1998). The centres should be linked to concrete
activities: literacy alone will not interest the people. There can be core activities
discussion groups, library, music and cultural events, sports etc. The UNESCO continu-
ing education programmes have been recommendedskill development, individual
interest courses, quality of life programmes and equivalency programmes etc. (Vir,
1995). Each centre can prepare speci c projects, and where approved NLM will (in
principle) fund these. From 1999, decisions about funding will be taken at state level
through the newly established State Literacy Missions, not at Delhi. This decentralised
funding will be based on a year plan for which the state missions will receive a block
grant. But because of the cost of this scheme throughout the whole of India, NLM is
concentrating on setting up the continuing education centres and the Nodal centres and
staf ng them.
It is also working on an equivalency programme. Broad guidelines have recently been
approved for a curriculum for continuing education (NLM, 1996), including suggestions
for the size and quality of printing of materials, illustrations, quality of paper etc.,
principles developed through a national workshop. Although mathematics and languages
and environmental subjects are included, the curriculum is not a formal one; it will
include topics such as the role of different agencies in development. Although there is
strong demand for languages other than the local state language, especially Urdu and
English, these are not included at the moment. NLM suggest such subjects are better
done through the private and commercial agencies and the growing number of open
schools, which can give certi cates for this purpose. The equivalency programme in the
continuing education centres is likely to start at Standard 5 and run up to Standard 8 (this
will vary from state to state); and there can be a bridge course after the post-literacy
primer to take the learners up to Class 3 or 4 as needed (NLM staff, Delhi).
In theory, the continuing education centres are to be open to the wider public, but in
practice they will concentrate on the graduates from the Total Literacy Campaign. The
guided learning programmes are for the Total Literacy Campaign completers only. CE
is open to everyone but our [i.e. NLM] focus is on the neo-literate because there is a
danger of the CEC becoming hi-jacked by school students, unemployed youth who are
bored (who for example will read novels of no relevance to the rest of the villagers). The
others should be fringe bene tters (staff member, NLM, Delhi, 1998).
For the rest of the continuing education programme, NLM is encouraging the new
160 A. Rogers
centres to integrate their activities with other local and regional development pro-
grammes such as the Integrated Rural Development Programme.
There is much money coming into every District under IRDP which is very
strong. They have structures and activities and funds but no centres. There is
also funding for quality of life programmeswater, health, housing, family
welfare etc. Much of this is by extension and materials. All of these can be
used by the continuing education centres Much of continuing education is
already there: NLM is bringing things together. (NLM staff, Delhi, 1998)
One such area is Population Education, which is funded by UNFPA and which has been
running since before the Total Literacy Campaign (1987) under the aegis of the Union
Directorate of Adult Education. This has been brought into the post-literacy stage
through the production by the State Resource Centres of population education reading
materials, although Population Education Cells established in each state continue to
function separately from the Total Literacy Campaign post-literacy phase (Literacy
Mission 15.5, 1992, pp. 1617).
Some continuing education centres have already been established, mainly by NGOs.
In several cases, it would seem that these are centres which these NGOs had already
established prior to being involved in the Total Literacy Campaign and which they have
now designated as CECs so that they can be funded under the Total Literacy Campaign.
One NGO reported: We have set up some CECs in hamlets. These have classes run by
volunteers. We have four cluster CECs, each with its own room, blackboard, library and
self-help group; some have a community television. They are run by a village committee
[gram sabha]. We built these ourselves ( eld notes, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, March 1998).
As with post-literacy, there is disagreement over the nature of continuing education
among the planners in Delhi and the state capitals and the eld workers. Some see
continuing education as primarily the development of self-help groups (in practice
mainly income-generation groups, but some having a radical social action element).
Others see it as the establishment of village learning centres for classes (in effect,
non-forma l schools), or more effective village libraries and centres for individuals as
well as groups. Guidelines for continuing education have recently been nalised and
issued; and many of the TLC districts are waiting for approval to start their continuing
education stage, approval for which has been delayed until the content and approaches
to continuing education have been determined.
In uences on Indian Continuing Education

There are several different in uences on the current de nition of continuing education
in India. One of these is the issue of equivalencywhether adult learners need to have
some educational programme roughly equivalent to the formal primary schooling
programme. Three possible approaches can be seen here, elements of all of which may
be found in the debate in India:
On the one hand is the question of whether to develop a bridge programme of access
education which will equip adults to gain entry into the formal system of primary and
secondary education;
A second approach is to develop an alternative system of primary education with
appropriate contents, materials and assessment procedures leading to alternative
certi cates for adults. Subjects such as mathematics, languages, science subjects,
history etc. are being discussed. The state of Andhra Pradesh has already developed
a textbook for this kind of programme which NLM have approved, translated into
English and distributed to other states to use as a benchmark;
A third approach is to develop an entirely different non-formal curriculum for adults
that may or may not lead to certi cation. Several of these have been developed
particularly by NGOs such as Nirantar (Delhi) during the last few years (Nirantar,
1997). UNESCOs ve-year programme which embraces Quality of Life, Womens
Empowerment and other subjects is very in uential on this third line of thinking
(UNESCO PROAP, 1993).
The Ministry of Human Resource Development in Delhi has established a core group to
examine this area, especially in relation to the National Open School that promotes both
primary and secondary level education through distance learning methods and materials.
A second in uence is the question of sustainabilityhow to make the gains achieved
through the Total Literacy Campaign permanent and how to fund further support for
learning programmes for adults. The proposed solution is to bring the Total Literacy
Campaign into the mainstream of the State Departments and Directorates of Adult
Education which have existed for many years and which had been sidelined for much
of the Total Literacy Campaign. Continuing education will eventually be handed over to
the states to run. Some practitioners suggest that continuing education is eventually to
be handed over to the people, not run by the state (BGVS staff, Delhi); but most see
it as eventually coming within the purview of the state government machinery. The
central government will fund it fully for the rst three years, and there will be joint
central and state funding for a further two years, after which the states will take over
fully. This is the reason that continuing education is regarded as having a life of ve
years, but also is seen as having no end. It is clear that it is increasingly being de ned
in terms of more traditional approaches to Adult Education in the various states.
Post-literacy Activities
The trends in continuing education towards a more formal approach to education for
adults in the form of some kind of schooling are having a major impact on the activities
of the post-literacy stage. For post-literacy in India is increasingly being seen by the
National Literacy Mission as a stage designed to act as a link between the initial TLC
and the continuing education stage, more than as a stage for learning more literacy skills.
The post-literacy stage normally lasts for two years, but in practice in some districts it
lasts for longer than this: Post-literacy should last for 1824 months but it often takes
longer, perhaps two and a half years (NIAE staff, 1998).
Given the disputed nature of the goals of post-literacy and given its links with both
the TLC which precedes it and continuing education which follows after, a very wide
range of activities is undertaken in post-literacy in India. It has elements of both literacy
learning and continuing education in it. Post-literacy needs clear objectives. These
should be to strengthen literacy skills through a properly planned primer; to develop a
vibrant reading and library movement; and to prepare for a creative and active
continuing education phase (NLM staff member, Delhi, 1998).
Post-literacy activities in India can thus be divided broadly into three categories (see
Table I), those literacy skill learning activities which in general relate backwards to the
TLC stage; an intermediate group which are self-contained; and those which look
162 A. Rogers
TABLE I. Post-literacy activities in India
Literacy enhancemen t Continuing education

activities Intermediate group related activities
1. Literacy skills 1. Skill development 1. Group formation

reinforcement/or programmes
mopping up/or
catching up programmes
2. Independent reading: 2. IRDP and other 2. Wider curriculum

Village libraries developmen t programmes
3. Materials production 3. Campaign activities
forward more to the subsequent continuing education phase. A number of different kinds
of activities can be seen under each of these three headings.
1. Literacy Enhancement
There is a good deal of straight literacy skill teaching in most post-literacy programmes.
The objectives of post-literacy are to consolidate literacy skills. It was felt that literacy
skills after TLC would be fragile, so we should provide further learning opportunities.
The formal emphasis is on literacy (Mathew, 1998).
First, there is a specially written post-literacy primer (in effect a fourth primer)
designed to last for six months for those who have completed the rst three TLC
primers. Only a few are prepared at district level; normally district-speci c changes are
made to localise and adapt the general post-literacy primer, as with the three initial TLC
primers. This primer is said to have more complicated words (joint letters) and more
dif cult words, since the learner must get used to what we have been reading. There
is no agreed list of contents of these primers, only common values such as environmen-
tal issues or gender or the girl child etc. While there is an emphasis on development
activities in the primer, in practice there is not a very clear difference between TLC and
post-literacy primers. There is no time limit but normally 40 hours in six months. There
should be discussion twice a week as well (Tamil Nadu State Resource Centre, Madras,
1998). The aim of this is to develop literacy from pure literacy to meaningful
literacy (Mathew, 1998).
Secondly, districts may provide under post-literacy a new initial literacy training
programme for mopping up those who never enrolled in the Total Literacy Campaign,
and follow-up programmes for those who did enrol but dropped out. Estimates vary
about how many of the initial target group of illiterates aged between 15 and 35 (in
some areas 45) did not enrol in the initial Total Literacy Campaign. Figures vary widely.
One set suggests that out of 118.5m, some 84.5m enrolled and half of these (44.8m)
completed the course. Other gures suggest that between 66% and 40% of the initial
target group enrolled, so there are substantial shortfalls to be made good (Singh, 1991).
It is generally recognised that one major failure of most TLC programmes is with
linguistic and social minorities, especially tribal and nomadic groups. Special literacy
programmes are being run for these under the post-literacy programme in several
districts, funded separately by the Union Ministry of Welfare (Literacy Mission 16.1,
1993, p. 32). What is more, the of cially declared drop-out rates from the initial TLC
programmes were often very high: Some learners stopped when they had learned to sign
their namesthey do not want to go any further (BGVS, Delhi, 1998). Clearly there is
much mopping up to be done, even in districts that had declared themselves one hundred
per cent literate. But in practice mopping up is not easy: We are doing a complete
survey of the whole Block. New primers are not available. We can re-use old primers
and use slates for writing since we cannot get any exercise books and pencils. I got 200
old primers and gave them out ( eld worker, NGO, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, March 1998).
But there is another element that has not been allowed for. TLC has three books.
Book 1 (3 months) is OK; the second level is dif cult, only 30% take it. And only 15%
or even 10% do the third primer. So when post-literacy starts, some of them spend time
catching up. We take more than six months, probably one year or even more. The PL
primer is about Standard 5 of primary school ( eld workers, Trichy, 1998). As one
report put it, the Basic Literacy Programme was continued [into Post-Literacy] to make
as many learners as possible Self-Reliant Learners (SRLs) (Literacy Mission 16.1, 1993,
p. 25).
All of the literacy enhancement activitiesin so far as they are evaluated at allare
evaluated by statistics based on the administration of standardised literacy tests. In many
districts, there is no systematic evaluation of post-literacy achievements yet, although
some criteria are in process of being created. There are tests in TLC but not in
post-literacy, only self-evaluation which is not systematised (NIAE staff, Delhi, 1988).
In other districts, where evaluations of post-literacy have taken place, these tend to be
in terms of formal reading and writing tests. In Burdwan, for example, a test was given
to all these [mop up, catch up and post-literacy learners]. This test was stiffer than [the
Basic Literacy programme test] (Literacy Mission 16.1, 1993, p. 25).
NLM are devising guidelines for evaluating PL The NLM evaluation is
concerned with literacy skill acquisition, not with other non-literacy learning
which goes on. It uses formal educational tests by standards equivalents,
irrespective of the quality of teaching and learning in non-academic areas. This
is not because NLM is unsympathetic to these new approaches. NLM allows
exibility, unlike the formal system of education. But everything which is of
learner interest and life is not assessable in the formal educational standards.
Evaluation has played a fraud on the literacy movement because it suited the
administrators. (BGVS, Delhi, 1998)
But again local variants are found:
There have not been many evaluations of post-literacy. The national evaluation
is based on how many books have been read. There are no national guidelines
for the evaluation of PL: therefore everyone did their own thing. We evaluate
the outcomes of TLC in terms of how many community problems have been
taken for action: this shows the quality of the programme, not its quantity. We
promised to the learners in the primers that TLC would address their problems;
this raised lots of aspirations, and these need to become reality. (State
Resource Centre, Madras, 1998)
Most of this literacy learning programme concentrates on reading rather than writing.
But there are signs of an increased concern with writing, with a number of write-on
books of an elementary kind (frequently similar to those found in primary school).
Writing is encouraged through interactive primers. In one area, every month the
volunteers give the post-literacy participants a new primer with an unsolved problem for
group discussion and writing of replies. In another state, application forms such as
164 A. Rogers
money orders, bank forms, electricity forms, forms for ling complaints etc. have been
used: this went very well (Mathew, 1998). Every District has a broadsheet, and
postcards and letters are sent by the participants to the broadsheet. In Tamil Nadu, a
booklet containing questions for conducting a village survey is provided, but all the
questions are seen as factual, and there is little space for different opinions to be
expressed. Reports suggest that these booklets, which have to be returned to the State
Resource Centre, are often lled in by the volunteers, not the literacy learners (State
Resource Centre, Madras).
Independent Reading
In the post-literacy stage, the of cial period of six months literacy tuition by volunteers
is to be followed by eighteen months of independent reading. The key elements here
are the village libraries and the materials prepared and collected for distribution through
these libraries.
Village Libraries. Within the post-literacy programme, there is provision for village
libraries to encourage a literacy-rich environment in which individuals can read for
pleasure and pro t. The model is the former JSNs, although it is agreed that these had
been a failure almost everywhere. In addition, some areas have local libraries supported
by the gram panchayat (village council).
Under the post-literacy guidelines, one such library should be established for every
15002000 population, or for 500 neo-literates. They are staffed by unpaid persons, who
are not always chosen from the volunteer teachers but are often new recruits, educated
persons from within the village. Village libraries are sometimes housed in public or
community buildings, especially where these have been provided by NGOs. But most are
in private houses, and consist of a steel cupboard with a number of books. There is little
training for the librarians in keeping the library, and records are rarely kept effectively;
in one case, training consisted of three days residential, and it concentrated mostly on
how to help income-generation groups rather than library facilitation ( eld visit notes,
Andhra Pradesh).
The number of books provided to each library varies greatly, from about 4050 to
over 200 titles, sometimes in sets of eight or more. They are mostly ction, especially
short stories. In one area, the books are chosen by the District Literacy Committee and
obtained from the State Resource Centre, BGVS and private publishers from a list of
roughly 500700 approved books. Some village libraries collect books from people in
the area, but they do not buy new books or magazines. They have newspapers but these
are not well used; many people thought the newspaper was private property. The library
is not without its own local problems. Some librarians think that the facilities have been
given to them. On the other hand, some books are not returned because they say, it
is a good book: why should I return it to you? Some rich farmers have tried to stop poor
farmers from reading some of the books (e.g. on fertilisers) (Mathew, 1998).
The libraries are not well used or active in most cases. We need to put the
library in a common place: some are in a common place such as panchayat
of ce, and these have lots of people (although most of these are people who
come to the panchayat for other business). In the other libraries, the people are
not coming to read. We need to appoint as librarians interested persons who

can take awareness to the people. The public do not know what is available.
There are no set times for opening. There is no guidance to readers, but that
is now included in the training programme for librarians. (Mathew, 1998)
Most of the borrowers are shown from evaluations to have been primary school
graduates rather than TLC graduates or post-literacy participants.
But the reluctance of many of the literacy learners to use the village libraries may
spring from different motives. Only some 20% of the neo-literates are independent
readers; 80% need help the worker makes the library into a reading centre only rather
than a learning centre as well as a library. There should be a post-literacy [teaching]
centre with a village library in every village (BGVS, Delhi, 1998). And some projects
have found that the post-literacy participants prefer a group learning centre with a
facilitator rather than independent reading centres. A post-literacy project that provided
both kinds of learning opportunity at the same time reported:
The primary school in every village is converted into a post literacy centre
(PLC) after school hours. One room serves as a Literacy Centre (LC), one as
an of ce and storing Post Literacy books, and one as Reading Room for SRLs
(Self-Reliant Learners). The number of LCs vary according to the number of
learners in a village. This total complex is known as Post Literacy Centre. The
plan is to open 4000 PLCs. So far 1500 to 2000 have started to function.
The original idea was that the learners who had not reached the Self-
Reliant Learning level and were at various stages of learning [literacy skills]
would assemble in the LCs to continue their education. Whereas the SRLs
would assemble in the Reading Room either to continue their studies of the
two books issued to them or to borrow fresh books from the librarian, a
volunteer. But the scheme did not work in practice. Having developed an itch
for learning, the SRLs ocked to the LCs most conveniently situated for them.
(Literacy Mission 16.1, 1993, p. 26).
A gap existed between the expectations of the providers (independent reading) and the
expectations of the participants (assisted group learning).
However, it is important to note that there are instances of effective reading centres,
but these seem to be relatively rare, and reading and discussion groups, even where they
exist, do not often seem to lead to group action. There are, however, other library
movements. Although many of the surviving JSNs seem to have been absorbed into the
TLC post-literacy village library programme, other libraries have remained apart. The
Kerala village libraries, which number perhaps some 8000, have been in existence for
some 3035 years. They contain large numbers of books and booklets divided into
various sectionsreference, farming, student textbooks etc. But they are not catering for
neo-literates. When we asked them for some neo-literate corners, these were not
successful, because the village libraries are identi ed with the educated and not with
neo-literates ( eld worker, Kerala 1998).
Other activities exist outside of the Total Literacy Campaign. One signi cant venture
is the Rajiv Gandhi Foundations programme for village libraries. In association with
New Age International (a publishing charity formerly called Books for Change), by 1998
this Foundation had established in 810 states a total of 711 libraries (685 villages and
26 slums); the number is increasing. They are linked together into a system. The
programme began in Rajasthan and is now in the north-east (Darjeeling) and in the south
166 A. Rogers
(Tamil Nadu). The Foundation collaborates with a range of regional and local partners
for example, in Rajasthan, they work with the village literacy committees, while in
Darjeeling with HIMUL Milk Co-operative Womens Section. All households in the
village choose one member to join the library; they pay a small annual fee, which is used
to buy new books. The library space is provided by villagers. Recurrent costs are very
low. New books are provided, but the experience in each centre is different. In some
places, villagers and teachers contribute new books. Most of these libraries subscribe to
newspapers, but not normally to regular magazines. People in villages are writing to the
Foundation suggesting subjects for new material, and the New Age publishers produce
these. For example, in Rajasthan, a booklet on Animals and their Care in Hindi was
prepared at the request of village readers. The Foundation is inviting expert writers and
professional poets to write for them. It is their intention that the libraries should become
the focus of village interaction and centres for income-generation, but they admit that so
far this has not been successful; some have training programmes but no income-
generation activities. The Foundation covers the seed money and supplies the furniture
and 400500 carefully chosen books, not just booklets; it also pays the honorarium of
the librarian. About 10% of the funds or books come from the New Age publishers who
also manage all logistics and management of the project. The librarians who are chosen
locally are provided with some training through the National School of Drama.
The programme has been evaluated. According to some evaluations, participation is
large in terms of membership, borrowing and returns to the library. However, reports
suggest that those who used them said that they had read all the books very quickly and
demanded new books. Books on mythology were most popular; also health, home and
hygiene (RGF, 1998; interviews with RGF staff, 1998).
On the whole, these libraries are isolated from the NLM post-literacy programme. An
early approach for funding from NLM did not lead to any agreement, although in one
area of Rajasthan some integration between the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the
post-literacy programme has taken place. However, at the local level, there is little
support for these libraries from the TLC practitioners. There is a feeling (as one
practitioner put it) that they had been parachuted into the chosen villages. Like the
libraries of Kerala, it is felt that the RGF books are too dif cult for neo-literates (State
Resource Centre, Madras, 1998). The future of the RGF Village Library Programme is
not clear.
Materials Production. Apart from the preparation of the post-literacy primer (which
one practitioner described as something of a ritual; it is not prepared carefully in
most areas, Orissa eld notes, 1998), the preparation of supplementary or follow-
up reading materials constitutes a major part of the post-literacy programme of the
Total Literacy Campaign. Much of this work is done by the State Resource Centres,
which prepare and produce very large numbers of books and booklets, magazines
and newsletters at the request of the districts, and sell them to various bodies. A stand-
ard neo-literacy vocabulary has been developed to get the texts correct for what
is perceived to be the literacy level of the TLC graduates. We prepare special
materials at the request of Districts. It takes us 612 months. The Districts buy
our materials. These re ect what the people want to some extent. Comics are very
popular (State Resource Centre, Madras, 1993). Other material is produced at district
level on occasion. There is relatively little learner-generated material production
(Mace, 1995; Meyer, 1996) in India. LGM is a term that is used in some
contexts in Indian adult education, and it here means locally-generated material; local
in this context is taken to mean district-level. The value of extension material produced
by other developmental agencies is widely recognised and is being promoted: in
integrated projects, NLM could help fund materials produced by other development
agencies like agriculture, health etc., through the continuing education centres (State
Resource Centre, Madras, 1998). Field research is usually undertaken to determine the
kind of material to be produced:
We did experiment: we asked the people what they liked: the answer was
stories (myths) and relevant materials. We studied the stories which parents
told their children. We rewrote the stories and the people liked them. (State
Resource Centre, Madras, 1998)
The newly produced post-literacy material tends to be graded. It would seem that in
general three levels of grading are common but these are not universal. Gradingwhen
it is systematictends to be related to vocabulary (centrally determined, not locally), the
use of joint letters or dif cult words, the size of printing, and the length of sentences,
criteria which are felt to be universally applicable to all readers irrespective of their local
experience. Most of these are the same criteria as are used for childrens grading
processes.
It is therefore not surprising that one criticism made locally is that most of these
books treat adult neo-reading people as overgrown children (Chowdhury, 1997). They
are really for children; and those for adults treat them like children, as ignorant. For
example, they tell the readers that you should drink milk (Mathew, 1998). Another
commentator (more favourable to these materials) admits that The neo-literate materials
are often now found in the primary schools; they enhance childrens reading. We tested
the children on their understanding of the material. All CECs should have a childrens
corner ( eld worker, Tamil Nadu, 1998).
There has been a
proliferation of newsletters, wall newspapers and broadsheets/tabloids for

neo-literates published from the district headquarters and sometimes from the
State capital NLM grants ensured regular production. However, the more
dif cult task of physical distribution of the materials and making sure that
neo-literate persons had access to them and read them was neglected Even
the best ones have not been able to sustain themselves In Tamil Nadu, some
of the districts priced their broadsheet and organised neo-literate reading
groups in villages while other districts succeeded in getting modest local
advertising support. However, these efforts could not become self-sustaining
over a period of time as they depended on the NLM grants and that was
according to a time-bound programme. (Ghosh, 1997a, pp. 34)
Other support is sometimes raised: in West Bengal, UNICEF is supporting a local

newspaper for neo-literates (Ghosh, 1997a, p. 5).
Most of this material is restricted in its circulation to users of the village library and
participants in the post-literacy classes of the Total Literacy Campaign. This can on
occasion cause friction in the village:
We did experiment collecting information on agriculture and put this into six
textbooks. The latest agricultural technology was added by the universities.
168 A. Rogers
They were eld tested. Now the books are asked for by farmers. They say: Ill
pay for them. Each costs 712 rupees. (State Resource Centre, Madras, 1998)
One of the main issues for debate in India about the post-literacy stage of the Total
Literacy Campaign is how to make the materials for post-literacy relevant to the
readers. The drop-out of participants between TLC and post-literacy, and during
post-literacy is not due to the lack of materials but to the lack of relevance of the
materials ( eld worker, Tamil Nadu, 1998).
Local variations are recognised, not so much in terms of subject matter as of reading
levels: Some states are more advanced than others in their reading habits. Relevance
should be locally determined, not top-down. The aim of the NLM in the post-literacy
area is to help to sustain materials by helping them to be relevant, so that readers in
the end will be willing to pay for them. The NLM staff plan to persuade commercial
publishers to enter this eld of supplementary readers. A government-supporte d pro-
gramme on its own will never be sustainable (NLM staff, Delhi, 1998).
Independent evaluations of post-literacy materials are rare in India, but where they
have been undertaken (for example, Saraswathi, 1981; Rao, 1996), they show the same
features as the initial TLC primers (Dighe, 1995). Among other things, many of these
post-literacy primers and reading materials present a model of development in which the
target group alone are said to need to change. The need for oppressive systems to change
for development to be effective does not appear in many of the primers, except perhaps
in lessons concerning gender inequality.
2. Intermediate Activities
The intermediate activities are the weakest part of the spectrum of post-literacy activities,
but there are several parts of the programme which start and nish within this stage.
Skill Development
The value of skill development training is acknowledged by NLM, and the development
of income-generation skills is formally part of the proposed post-literacy range of
activities. (Post-literacy practitioners still talk about income-generation rather than
sustainable livelihoods). Nevertheless, such training rarely exists in any formal kind
except through the self-help groups (see below). So far it has not been possible to
provide for any skill training in the PLCs [Post-Literacy Centres] (Literacy Mission
16.1, p. 26). Nevertheless NGOs have been more successful in including skill training
within TLC post-literacy programmes: classes and groups on cre`che training, tailoring,
carpentry and other subjects can be found in various locations. However, the main
channel for such skill development is through the materials prepared for the village
libraries, many of which focus on subjects such as vegetable growing, bee keeping,
farming, shing etc.
Integrated Development
Post-literacy activities designed to help the participants to relate their plans to existing
development programmes, calling upon local of cials to supply the relevant inputs to
which the villagers felt they were entitled, would seem actually to be at a lower level
than during the initial TLC phase of the programme. The writing of postcards to District
Collectors declines. There is no real link except in isolated instances with the Integrated
Rural Development Programme. The lack of an institutional framework for post-literacy
in the villages means that this aspect of the programme cannot be developed more fully.
The NLM view is clear: We want to build linkages between literacy and development
sectors such as inoculation, family planning, cattle breeding etc., but we are not sure how
to do it. At the moment there are mechanical links, lectures and booklets by experts and
visits (NLM staff, Delhi, 1998). But on the ground, it is not so easy. Some areas make
valiant efforts, such as Solan, where local groups have been formed to spread awareness
among neo-literates and literacy activists on issues like health, primary education,
environment, womens equality, small family norm, prohibition, small savings, and
national integration (Literacy Mission 21.13, p. 21). Others have been able to tie some
of their post-literacy activities in with the innovative government programme for
womens empowerment (mahila samarkhya). Urban post-literacy programmes seem to
offer a wider range of such activities. But elsewhere:
Even the Development Of cers have not made it a point to visit the PLCs
[Post-Literacy Centres] for imparting technical knowledge and skill. It would
not be possible to give any preferential treatment to neo-literates under IRDP
scheme. Because the basis of selection [of groups for IRDP to work with] is
not only the poverty criterion but in uence, political backing, caste, and so
many other considerations play some role too. (Literacy Mission 16.1, p. 26)
Campaigning
One of the aims of the post-literacy stage of the NLM is to raise community awareness
of the need to build a reading climate. In some areas, notably in the BGVS districts, this
part of the programme does seem to have had some effect. We have experimented with
group reading of books. We held a reading festival in one village for a week. From this,
groups were formed with people reading out loud in turns. There is a tradition of
collective listening in India which we must build upon. Post-literacy can do this kind of
group work. In another district, writing and book reading competitions, singing songs,
folk dancing etc. were held. The best performers were awarded prizes and certi cates
(BGVS, Delhi, 1998). In several areas, such as Pune, activities such as a school
enrolment programme for children have been a feature of the post-literacy programme.
Awareness-raising group discussions have been mounted in several areas, especially in
the towns. One activity which has attracted some attention is the development of cycling
for women as a con dence-raising programme which has enjoyed considerable popular-
ity (see for example, Karlekar, 2000, pp. 127176). The application of campaign
approaches to post-literacy has had some local success, but generally there is a
recognition that this campaigning mode cannot be maintained beyond the initial stages
of the Total Literacy Campaign.
3. Activities Related to Future Roles

What some districts call the second phase of Post-Literacy (Literacy Mission 16.1,
p. 26; see Literacy Mission 21.13, pp. 49) has taken up some activities in anticipation
of the development of various future programmes after the end of the post-literacy phase.
The two most notable elements are group formation and the teaching of a wider
curriculum in preparation for continuing education.
170 A. Rogers
Group Formation
One aspect of the post-literacy stage in some areas is a process of group formation to
encourage radical change in the villages or urban communities. Two kinds of such
groups exist in post-literacy programmes. One kind is the learning groupgroups of
men and women (usually single-sex groups) meeting with a volunteer teacher (animator
or facilitator) to learn either literacy or some other programme. The other kind is what
is coming to be called the self-help group. Particularly prominent in southern India, it
also occurs as income-generation groups in other states. Many places have mahila
mandals (womens groups) which are more usually discussion and con ict resolution
groups than social action groups. Other districts have promoted the continuation of
BGVS groups with a more radical programme of social transformation.
Most post-literacy groups have now moved to become Self-Help groups.
There are a set of six or seven indicators; if these are achieved, the participants
can join into a group on the basis of poverty. They can develop savings and
loans and then move to community issues. This is mainly in Tamil Nadu but
it is also growing in other states. It also operates in BGVS and non-BGVS
areas. Preference is given to neo-literates [i.e. graduates from the Total
Literacy Campaign programmes] but some illiterates can join the Self-Help
group. They do not admit primary school graduates because of the indicators.
NGOs help the SHGs. This is seen as part of the post-literacy programme.
(BGVS, Delhi, 1998)
But reality in the eld seems to be somewhat different. Some, perhaps many, of these
self-help groups existed prior to the Total Literacy Campaign. Their membership is more
mixed, and their income-generation activities are often well established:
We are linking literacy with income-generation programmes through our
Self-Help groups. We have 500 SHGs in 312 villages with 5242 members.
Most of them are for women, some are for men and a few for children.
We have formed them into a Federation. The Federation has a bank account;
it has an elected 32-member General Body and a nine-member Executive
Committee. (Director of NGO, Tamil Nadu, 1998)
The groups in this case include mahila mandals, youth clubs and older persons groups
etc. It is clear that many of these were pre-existing:
We drew in some of the literacy people and they do the literacy activities
alongside the income-generation activities. One cannot become a member of a
Self-Help group unless literate. We have a test (e.g. reading a newspaper with
large print). We do not require much writingwe have not done very much
of that. Those who do not pass the test can become members but cannot
operate the account and cannot take a loan. They are given six months to take
the test. This is our own scheme. (Ibid.)
In another case, the group was started many years before, in 1986. Originally all the
women in the village formed the group45 in all (in late 1997, the group split into two
groups of 20 and 25 members). In 1987, they demonstrated vigorously for a new
road and got it. They now raise their own money by a subscription on all families in
the village, and work to keep the road in repair. They engage in income generation
(cactus bre), members doing it individually in their homes. But they keep coming to
meetingsbeing together is happiness was the way that some of the members put it.
This group is registered as a post-literacy group ( eld visit to NGO, Trichy District,
1998).
Because these groups had started earlier and were comprehensive, non-literate as well
as literate women were members. Out of the smaller of the new groups (20 members),
13 formed a TLC group. The other seven had attended primary school. One member who
had attended TLC for six months said she had forgotten everythingshe said that she
had no need to read or write. Another TLC learner could read (she demonstrated it), but
said that she does not read normally, and she could not think of anything she would like
to read: she thought that reading was a TLC class activity. Nor did she write: although
engaged in milk farming, she did not keep her milk account in any written form.
We have a meeting every two weeks for one hour. We have a set agenda
attendance register, prayer and songs, collect subscriptions, discuss about
village needs, reading minutes of last meeting. If members do not come, they
will pay 25 paisa ne unless apologies are sent; most do come. The money is
collected for village use and for emergencies; so far, it has not been used for
individual loans, but now well begin to make individual loans. We do not
have a village library, but we have had lots of TLC books, and the NGO lent
us other books which we returned to them. We had pamphlets on awareness.
The [village] teashop has a newspaper. Sometimes the women bring the paper
away. During SHG meetings, it may be read out loud to others; but on other
days, they read it alone. Every 15 days, the secretary writes the minutes of our
meetings. (Field notes, 1998)
The group is currently campaigning for a better drinking water supply. They want a
school for their children who attend the elementary school half a kilometre away in the
next village; it only has one teacher. We have pressed for an extra teacher but there
has been no action. Therefore we want a school here. It is dangerous going along this
road to the school (one child was killed recently) ( eld visit to NGO, Trichy District,
1998).
The post-literacy stage of the NLM then is being used hereand apparently
elsewhereto support activities that were going on in any case.
Self-help groups on this model are not the only form of group formation. In Faridkot,
for example, the organisers reported that new groupings called Lok Chetna Kendras had
been formed. They consist of 51 members, of whom 30 are described as neo-literates,
three are literacy practitioners and 18 are literacy friends. Each has ve sub-
committees: education (which organises literacy centres and libraries for neo-literates),
women, sports, culture and development. The LCK of cially meets every two weeks to
discuss a topic of social evils and awareness, and the key resource personnel (usually
regarded as the district-level TLC staff) are provided with brie ngs on these topics every
month. According to the report, the groups also engaged in relevant development
activities and advocacy (Faridkot, 1996). Other forms of group formation exist in
different parts of the country.
A Wider Curriculum
A second element in the future-related activities of the post-literacy programme is the
provision of a course of study designed to help adults to gain access to a more formal
educational programme, either non-forma l (continuing education) or the formal system
172 A. Rogers
of primary and secondary schools. In some districts, a new curriculum has been
developed for adult learners, and attempts have been made to provide this. In several
post-literacy areas, a more systematic training programme for participants has been
developed, mainly by NGOs. Drawing upon a curriculum related to the formal primary
schools or creating a new non-formal curriculum designed to be ful lling on its own,
such learning programmes have often been developed in a participatory way (Nirantar,
1997).
One well-placed commentator has indicated that when this curriculum has been
developed by the learners, literacy does not feature so prominently, but when it has been
developed by the appropriate authorities and imposed on the people, there will be more
literacy: in some, perhaps many, post-literacy centres, there is relatively little literacy
going on. There may be a trade-off between learner-interest and literacy learning. The
post-literacy participants may get literacy unawares. Such a programme does not aim at
literacy development alone. It is a slur on the learners to say that they are not interested
in literacy; they will learn literacy if it is couched in the process of interaction and group
activity (Mathew, 1998).
One issue that occurs from time to time is that of language provision. There are signs
of a demand for second language instruction; and in many areas, the local population is
already bilingual or multilingual, making it hard to meet all the literacy needs and
demands of the participants for the local language, Hindi and English. Dr Laso in the
north-eastern territories has been working in this area among post-literacy workers, and
her conclusion is that it is dif cult to nd TLC and post-literacy facilitators who possess
the skills and attitudes for such provision (Laso, 1998).
There is, however, relatively little discussion of this or other areas of the post-literacy
curriculum; nor of access to the formal system of education. It is not clear how many
post-literacy participants wish to follow this route. In practice, relatively little of this
programme exists in the Indian post-literacy programme compared with the literacy
element. In most areas, although access to continuing education does form one of the
main objectives of the post-literacy stage, the provision of a wider planned learning
programme does not form part of the objectives of post-literacy; that has been left to the
continuing education stage.
On the whole, the activities within the post-literacy phase in India are more geared to
learning more literacy skills than to developing other activities, except perhaps the
self-help groups in some parts of the country. It would seem that all the many other kinds
of activity are seen as a side issue compared with that.
Post-literacy Participants and Practitioners

It is estimated that less than one third of all the participants of the Total Literacy
Campaign participate in any form of post-literacy. There is a big dropout at this stage.
One set of statistics states that out of 35.6m completers of TLC (neo-literates), 73%
enrolled in post-literacy classes and 43% participated in post-literacy groups and village
libraries. Another estimate suggests that between 60 and 40% of TLC participants enrol
in post-literacy, while reports from the eld talk of between 30% and 50% (Literacy
Mission 16.1, p. 25). But discussions with eld workers suggest that these gures may
be too high.
Technically, post-literacy is open only to TLC participants; but in practice different
elements are open to other community members. The literacy learning programmes are
almost always only available to TLC participants. The village libraries are usually open
to all members of the community and seem to be used mostly by primary school graduates
or scholars. The post-literacy groups are again of cially only for those described as being
neo-literates, but they are often wider in their membership than this group. One reason
is to avoid complaints in the village of discrimination: why do you give books only to
him or to her and not to me?
In one area, it was stated that the original de nition of post-literacy was that it was
for those aged between 15 and 35, but that this had now been changed to cover the years
9 to 45. In fact, the participants in the post-literacy classes in this area were mainly aged
916 years. The members of the self-help groups were older; there is an age bar below
the age of 18 for membership of these groups in this area, although other areas have
self-help groups for children as well as for adults ( eld worker, Trichy District, 1998).
The staf ng of post-literacy is much the same as for the TLC. The teaching element
is done by a selected number of the same volunteers, normally unpaid. The process of
selection of some of the TLC animators for the continuation classes in the post-literacy
programme, especially after a gap of several months, had its problems: There are real
problems here. How can we judge commitment? We lost some good committed persons
(BGVS, Delhi, 1998). On the other hand, there was a sharp falling off of volunteers at
this stage. The lack of motivated educated persons in the villages has led on occasion
to volunteers being paid to come in from outside for about 45 months, and to the use
of children as teachers in other cases. Many organisers admit that it was probably a
mistake to turn what was a short voluntary activity into a three-year commitment.
Incentives have been offered by some districts and even some states, including a bonus
mark for admission to higher classes, weightage mark in interviews for Government jobs,
and preference in appointment in Quasi-Government and autonomous bodies (Literacy
Mission 16.1, 1993, p. 32). The village libraries are drawing on different personnel in the
village, but again many of the staff are unpaid. It is only during the continuing education
stage that the village librarians will be paid.
The other TLC staff remain the same. Block Co-ordinators and District Co-ordinators
continue to supervise the post-literacy as they did the TLC stage, although some of these
positions are coming to be occupied by NGO staff.
Training
NLM are clear that the training of volunteers is to be left to the districts, which usually
call upon the State Resource Centre, educational institutions or specialist NGOs. Training
of the literacy volunteer teachers is taken seriously in most areas (see for example Literacy
Mission 16.1, 1993, pp. 1518). There is, however, very little training for post-literacy.
In a number of cases, short sessions of orientation into the use of the new primer and/or
some orientation into running the village library or working with income-generation
groups is provided. The training of preraks (the local staff who run the continuing
education centres) is more common. Some experimental training programmes have been
devised, for example by Distance Learning in Madhya Pradesh (Literacy Mission 16.1,
1993, pp. 2729). There is a budget for training at the post-literacy stage, but it is not
a large one. The main restriction however appears to be the motivation of both the trainers
and the trainees for such training. For example, in one area, a maximum of ve days
training for the full-time TLC staff was set because the districts said they could not spare
their staff for longer than this (State Resource Centre, Madras, 1998). Some NGOs t
this training into their normal programme of training offered to their client groups, through
technical services such as water, sanitation, forestry and soil conservation etc.
174 A. Rogers
Current Concerns about Post-literacy

There is much debate and frequently expressed concern about the post-literacy pro-
gramme in India. Most of the current concerns about post-literacy in India have been
mentioned above but it may be as well to list them separately here.
The rst point to make, however, is that with the increased criticism of the Total
Literacy Campaign, its very real achievements are being overlooked:
There are one hundred ways one can take a negative view of the adult literacy
effort in India, but with all the cultural, political and nancial problems of
India today, we can still say that there is some concern for literacy learning not
found in other countries Post-literacy centres are functioning and some
people are interested; this shows that the providers and the people are working
together. (Mathew, 1998)
It is important that this view is not lost in what follows. Nevertheless, there is
widespread recognition that the post-literacy stage is not achieving what it set out to
achieve. The NLM admits that even the Post-Literacy Campaign has not enabled the
learners to reach a level at which they can take off to other things. One agency noted
that those participants who had learned to sign their names will sign anything without
reading it: they say, Im happy (NLM staff, Delhi, 1998; NIAE, Delhi, 1998). One
writer has spoken of the dismal state of the PL programmes (Ghosh, 1997a, p. 5).
The causes of this generally recognised failure of post-literacy are seen to differ
according to those who are involved. Most of cials are reluctant to admit there is
anything fundamentally wrong with it, so they blame the lack of interest of the learners
or the abilities of the volunteers. Others admit to some administrative failures, such as
delays in securing permission to proceed or to release the funds; while the NLM blame
the failure of the districts to send in project proposals or reports on their work, without
which they cannot evaluate the various experimental programmes. Others blame the
weather (monsoons or drought), travel dif culties and lack of facilities such as accom-
modation.
More generally however, the Total Literacy Campaign programme is felt to have been
too ambitious, leaving the post-literacy stage to pick up its many failings. Primers 2 and
3 especially are felt to be too extensive to be covered in the time available. Some people
have been pointing out for a long time that the numbers of persons who may become
self-reliant learners will always be small and the time needed for this will be long (e.g.
Literacy Mission 16.1, 1993, p. 26), but they have not been heeded, and over-optimistic
expectations of quick and substantial results still abound.
With regard to post-literacy, it is claimed that it lacks clarity; both its objectives and
its programme are uncertain. This lack of focus has led to a decline of commitment at
both political and administrative levels. There is no political will for post-literacy as
there was for TLC. The District Collector is convinced of the value of TLC, but he is
not so convinced of the value of the next stages (Tamil Nadu eld workers, 1998). This
is understandable, for it is dif cult to support something that is unclear whole-heartedly.
Volunteers too were observed to lack the energy to continue their work for a further
period of six months when the structure and purpose of the programme they were asked
to teach were not felt to be clear.
Part of this lack of commitment to post-literacy arises from concern about where the
Total Literacy Campaign programme is leading. On the one hand, there is the statement
by one NGO: One good thing came from TLC, the people questioned the politicians.
But they did not vote because they did not want elections (NGO, Tamil Nadu, 1998).
Others have wondered what will be the end of it all:
What becomes of a movement which laid the foundations of literacy, aware-
ness creation, and organisation of people to articulate their wants and aspira-
tions, after the conclusion of the programme? What happens to the beginnings
of a meaningful, if assertive, participation by neo-literates in the development
processes through individual, collective and social involvement? Should a
movement like this, which has taken some nascent institutionalisation shape,
end with post-literacy and continuing education programme duration? These
are concerns. (BGVS, Delhi, 1998)
Wide gaps (at least 612 months and sometimes longer) existed in most districts between
the end of the TLC phase and the receipt of permission and funding for the post-literacy
stage, just as it now exists between the end of the post-literacy stage and the start of the
continuing education stage (many districts have been waiting for more than two years to
start continuing education). One provider said, We had 18 months to write our
post-literacy project but it took two and a half years to write it (Laso, 1998). Another
NGO reported: We had to wait a long time for authorisation to run post-literacy. We
continued however with our own funds until the grant came. We are not sure if others
do the same (NGO, Trichy, 1998).
Another major concern is how to ensure that the programme of post-literacy is of
relevance to the participants, while at the same time retaining the literacy component.
The lack of take-up, the high drop-out rate during post-literacy, and the absence of use
of the village libraries are all attributed to the perceived lack of relevance of the
programme and of the post-literacy reading materials to what the learners want. There
is a widespread view that local of cials, teachers and literacy workers and others need
to be involved in this process to motivate the neo-literates to bring neo-literates into
the main stream of development (Literacy Mission 21.13, 1997, pp. 2123). As more
than one writer has pointed out, it is not the lack of excellent materials which causes
people not to come to reading centres, but the lack of relevant material. Some
practitioners doubt if the relevance of the post-literacy materials is a major motivating
factor: It is not true that learners do not come to the post-literacy centres just because
there are not excellent materials there. They will be attracted to come if they have faith
in the volunteers, that they mean what they say; if there is live interaction there; and if
they perceive that the learning inputs are relevant and useful to them (Mathew, 1998).
However, although the campaign element of the Total Literacy Campaign convinced
many people of the general signi cance of literacy, they have still been unable to see
ways in which it is relevant to the details of their own lives. The general conclusion in
most circles seems to be that post-literacy in India is not reaching many people. There
are large numbers of dropouts from it, and its nal achievements do not seem to be
signi cant by any measure.
Such a conclusion is, however, based on very insubstantial evidence. For there is also
a recognition that there is a lack of monitoring and evaluation in post-literacy, linked of
course to the lack of clarity about the programme and its purposes. There are no clear
criteria for the evaluation of post-literacy. Some use literacy tests; others rely on
examples of increased individual con dence to undertake activities, or of groups tackling
various community development tasks. Without clear goals and the tools to measure the
achievements, without qualitative measures of impact, it is impossible to say whether
post-literacy is achieving anything or not.
176 A. Rogers
New Ideas about Post-literacy

Despite these concerns, there are few signs to indicate that there is any new thinking
about post-literacy in India. Rather, there is a common concern to try to make the
post-literacy stage as it exists more effective. One suggestion is to attach it to the initial
literacy training programme or to merge it into a uni ed programme of TLC/PL/CE.
The libraries have come under particular attention. It has been proposed that they
should be attached to the gram panchayats; or they should become peoples libraries; or
that they should become libraries for volunteers so that the volunteers can become a role
model for their learners; or they should become bookshops similar to the sanitary marts
which UNICEF has been establishing in many villagesthese are some of the ideas
being mooted.
Again, there is some idea of harnessing information technologies to village libraries.
One suggestion made is that the use of media could be increased with village radio
stations or mobile radio stations on bicycles. In particular, the computer is becoming
much more widely accessible: it was planned that by 2000, all Block Development
Of ces would have access to the new technology, and later the Village Administrative
Of ces would be connected. Not only will this make the production of new locally
relevant materials easier; it would enable the villagers to access up-to-date information:
Will people want out-of-date booklets when they can get up-to-date information?
Post-literacy must use IT; the whole approach will change (NIAE, Delhi, 1998). An
exciting project run by the M. S. Swaminathan Institute in Pondicherry using hub
villages with a computer and out-stations in a number of surrounding villages is yielding
valuable experience and very positive results, especially among women users of the
technologies, and its impact on literacy is being assessed by the National Institute of
Adult Education (oral report, NIAE, Delhi, 2001).
Conclusions
It may be valuable to draw some of the themes of this study of post-literacy in India
together and see what light it may shed on attitudes towards literacy in general terms.
First, post-literacy is seen as a time-bound stage of literacy. As one unpublished
evaluation report put it, the PL and CE which began on March 1994 was concluded in
March 1996. As long as post-literacy remains tied to a funded programme, there will
be a time limit to it. It has not yet been rede ned as an ongoing programme of assistance
to all those with limited literacy skills and con dence, in the way suggested by recent
reports on post-literacy (DFID, 1994, 1999).
Secondly, in many cases, children are taking over the educational elements in
post-literacy. Even children who are still in school attend the classes. They frequently
predominate in the use of village libraries. Adults retain their hold over the income-
generation and social-action elements, but as elsewhere, younger students tend to
become dominant.
Thirdly, the fact that there is very little writing in post-literacy except for classroom
activities such as write-on books would seem to indicate that literacy is not seen as the
foundation for action but as the foundation for further learning (seen as the taking in of
information to overcome ignorance). The future literacy needs of the people are seen
to be reading improving texts so that they can change their way of life and thus
develop.
There are therefore (despite some rhetoric) no real attempts to encourage the use of
literacy outside of the classroom in daily lifeexcept to take books from the village
library home to read (i.e. taking school-based literacy into the home rather than
home-based literacy into the classroom). Community literacy appears to be unknown:
There are notices at the panchayat of ce. Sometimes the volunteer will help the readers
to read posters etc., but normally they are left to do this for themselves (Trichy eld
visit, 1998). Most literacy practitioners in India see literacy as reading and writing in
special contexts for special purposes rather than normal activities that t into daily life.
Because of this, literacy is also associated with a particular set of values.
We do not let them [the village libraries] take lm magazines because they do
damage because of the role models they portray. Illiterates dont have role
models except from the cinema. We want to create new role models through
books etc. Therefore we do not use cinema songs or lm magazines; the
learners should be critical of what they read We studied the stories which
parents told their children but they gave the wrong signals because of the
values they presented. Therefore we rewrote the stories and the people liked
them. We pushed our values. (State Resource Centre, Madras, 1998)
The gaps between what the centre thinks is desirable and possible, and what the districts
feel is desirable and possible, and between what the districts plan for, and what the
learning centres (and literacy learners) want, are very wide (cf. Dyer, 2000). Despite the
efforts of all concerned to make this a bottom-up programme, top-down ideologies still
persist in many parts of the Total Literacy Campaign.
One reason for this is that, although technically and rhetorically, post-literacy is
decentralised, it is in fact becoming increasingly centrally guided. It would seem that
some of cials fear localisation, because they believe that this will result in increasing
diversi cation and lack of control.
Here we come to the essential dilemma of post-literacy, when on the one hand it is
attached to initial literacy while on the other hand it leads to some form of post-post-
literacy (continuing) educational provision. If the educational provision beyond post-
literacy is to be truly adult education and not simply an alternative form of primary
schooling for adults, it will result in learner-determined programmes with learner-
determined outcomes. Post-literacy in this case will provide a bridge between on the one
hand a nationally-provided programme of initial literacy learning with centrally-
determined uniform outcomes, and on the other hand a locally-determined adult learning
programme with many different formats and contentsa passageway from a national
programme to local literacies and local activities. The issue of how to bridge this divide
is the essential problem of post-literacy if it is seen as a stage in a literacy training
programme.
Put simply, the problem is whether post-literacy should be mainly a preparation for a
very local and diversi ed programme with learner-control, or whether it should be
mainly seen as a consolidation of nationally determined literacy skills development.
Post-literacy programmes in India are intended as a bridge from a national initial literacy
training programme to some (uncertain) future, from schooling to life-work. But in
practice, any post-literacy programme will tend to be closer either to the initial literacy
training or to the more diversi ed post-post-literacy programme. Throughout India, in
most cases, the post-literacy programmes are closer to initial literacy than to continuing
education. As one commentator put it, post-literacy in their case was not a separate
programme but a continuation of the Basic Literacy Programme. Only the number of
learning centres were less (Literacy Mission 16.1, 1993, p. 25). The volunteer post-
178 A. Rogers
literacy teachers who are unpaid, the post-literacy primer and various other features show
that post-literacy is almost everywhere still seen more as a continuation of the initial
Total Literacy Campaign than as a new programme. This is perhaps inevitable, since the
continuing education phases of the Total Literacy Campaign are still being fully
developed in detail.
On the whole, the NLM (despite its rhetoric) see literacy acquisition as a technical
matter and post-literacy as a further stage in this process. They do not in practice see
post-literacy as part of a transforming process, as do some of the NGOs and practi-
tioners. These see the main aim of post-literacy as being to promote critical analysis of
society and of the dominant power systems that need to be challenged. The importance
of the literacy programme in this process is substantial. Such a critical approach could
not so easily be developed without literacy, not because literacy skills in themselves are
essential to increased awareness and social action, but because the critical agents for the
formation of local groups have often been the literacy animator and the space provided
by the Total Literacy Campaign. The NGOs have been doing this for many years; but
within a government-supporte d programme, such an approach is unusual. It is perhaps
signi cant that other government-initiated programmes such as the panchayat raj
training and the mahila samarkhya (Womens Empowerment) programmes parallel a
willingness in India to encourage participatory and critical approaches to development.
How far this will go is a matter for the future. But a revised post-literacy programme
would add to this goal.
Correspondence: Alan Rogers, Noel Close, 5 Adderley Street, Uppingham, Rutland,

LE15 9PP, UK. e-mail: alanrogersa@aol.com
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Compare, Vol. 32, No.

Post-literacy and Second-Stage Adult Learning in India

ALAN ROGERS, School of Continuing Education, University of Nottingham

Post-literacy is an area of adult literacy provision in the context of developing societies

ISSN 0305-792 5 print; ISSN 1469-3623 online/02/020149-3 1

Total Literacy Campaign

using volunteer (mostly unpaid) teachers with prescribed teaching-learning materials. It

The Post-literacy Stage as a Battle eld

FIG. 1. Tensions in Indian post-literacy.

In uences on Indian Continuing Education

TABLE I. Post-literacy activities in India

Literacy enhancemen t Continuing education

1. Literacy skills 1. Skill development 1. Group formation

2. Independent reading: 2. IRDP and other 2. Wider curriculum

not coming to read. We need to appoint as librarians interested persons who

proliferation of newsletters, wall newspapers and broadsheets/tabloids for

Other support is sometimes raised: in West Bengal, UNICEF is supporting a local

3. Activities Related to Future Roles

Post-literacy Participants and Practitioners

Current Concerns about Post-literacy

New Ideas about Post-literacy

Correspondence: Alan Rogers, Noel Close, 5 Adderley Street, Uppingham, Rutland,

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