India’s Illiterates Get a Magic Wand

TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software

The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.

Some rules: Don't make an adult sit for tests. Don't get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can't be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.

The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.

"There's almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don't need a trained teacher [because of the software]," says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.

This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services' literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.

A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS's reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India's literacy problems.

The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.

The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.

Explains TCS, "This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy."

Learning by Association

Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha

CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make "90% of India functionally literate in three to five years."

It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.

Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. "With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom]," say the project promoters.

Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and 'flashcards'. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.

This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.

Claimed advantages of this approach include:

- Acceleration in the pace of 'learning to read' (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).

- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.

- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.

- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.

- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).

- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.

- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).

Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern

"One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern," says Major General Shively.

Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, "apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions." Between 1990 and 2000, India's literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China's grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia's literacy touches 87%, Thailand's is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.

In ten years, over the nineties, India's literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. "At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%," argues TCS.

More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy

Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.

"For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year," says Dey.

CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.

This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari's emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.

The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.

Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the common man in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at ScienceTech@islam-online.net.