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Intl Literacy Day

Literacy project heads nowhere

Designed to benefit 45 lakh people, the Tk 453cr scheme in crisis for fund crunch, wrong decisions

Mohiuddin Alamgir and Wasim Bin Habib
A Tk 453-crore literacy project meant to benefit 45 lakh people has suffered setbacks for fund crisis, a deviation from the original plan and wrong selection of beneficiaries.
In 2014, the government took up the Basic Literacy Project to be implemented with own fund for providing basic literacy and life skills to people aged between 15 and 45 in 64 districts by June 2018.
A couple of years after it was launched, the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, the implementing agency, had to drop the life skills component due to fund crisis.
Besides, the project deadline was extended twice, yet only one third of the work has been implemented.
Released in May this year, an in-depth government monitoring report has found that selection of 63 percent of the project beneficiaries were not done in line with the plan.
In the report, the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of the planning ministry said 40 percent of the 23 lakh beneficiaries are those who "dropped out" of formal education, although the project is designed to provide basic literacy to the illiterates.
And 23 percent of the beneficiaries were enrolled in non-formal education programmes previously, read the report.
It also said 36.27 percent of the project was implemented till April this year.
Experts say an absence of proper planning and the lack of will and financing as well as the implementation capacityare the reasons behind slow progress of the project.
"The selection process was faulty and this type of selection is a waste of public money," said noted educationist Rasheda K Choudhury.
Project Director Abdul Zalil, however, thinks this was not a waste of public money. "But this is definitely our limitation," he told The Daily Star.
He said the bureau is implementing the project through NGOs which run the learning centres. And it is NGOs which select the beneficiaries under monitoring of a committee for the project
“We've never heard any complaint about selection process of beneficiaries from anyone."
BNFE Director General Tapan Kumar Ghosh refused to comment about the selection process without seeing the IMED report.
"It's not a problem if people enrolled in other non-formal education programmes earlier are enrolled in the project."
Earlier, literacy meant a person could sign his or her name, he said.
"But now we call someone literate if he or she can write a letter to communicate a message and solve some simple arithmetic problems.
So, there is no problem if the old beneficiaries join again."
PROJECT AT A SNAIL'S PACE
The main activities of the Basic Literacy Project started in 2018 due to red tape and delay in selecting NGOs, said an official of the BNFE, wishing not to be named.
The deadline got the first extension in 2018, for one year, and now it is scheduled to end in June 2020.
It had targeted setting up 75,000 learning centres with 1,50,000 teachers and distributing over 96.36 lakh books among the 45 lakh beneficiaries in 250 upazilas. One NGO for each upazila, selected by the government, will run the learning centres.
But 22 lakh beneficiaries are yet to be enrolled in 116 upazilas, said the IMED report.
The report is based on interview of 800 beneficiaries of 16 districts and focused-group discussions and seminars from January to April this year.
It read that setting up 35,580 learning centres, appointing 71,620 teachers and publishing 46.40 lakh books for the learners are still pending.
The report further said 36 percent of learning centres were set up in the primary schools or madrasas. The rest 64 percent were established at houses of locals or in open places, which is inconsistent with the development project proposal (DPP).
About the allegation, BNFE Director General Tapan Kumar said it was decided that 50 percent of the learning centres will be set up at primary schools and madrasas, but there is a shortage of rooms at these educational institutions.
"We will start the project implementation in the rest 116 upazilas soon. We have selected NGOs and have made necessary preparations," said Project Director Abdul Zalil.
About the dropping of life skills component from the project, Rasheda K Choudhury, executive director of Campaign for Popular Education, said it was unfortunate.
"It shows the gap between planning and implementation."
BNFE DG Tapan said they dropped the plan due to unavailability of financing. "We needed Tk 2,000 crore for providing life skills knowledge to the beneficiaries."
But the government has a plan to impart life skills knowledge to the beneficiaries in future.
The project aimed at providing the beneficiaries with basic literacy skill of reading, writing and calculation. The courses were supposed to be integrated with life skills that are necessary or desirable for full participation in everyday life.
According to Unicef, life skills are defined as psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that
enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.
LITERACY SCENARIO
Adult illiteracy has been a major concern for Bangladesh. When the country became independent in 1971, the overall literacy rate was abysmal, only 16.8 percent.
Now the literacy rate for people aged 15 years and above stands at 73.9 percent, according to Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2018 of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The rate was 48.8 percent among the same age group in 2008, according to BBS Literacy Assessment Survey.
The government did not take up any significant project to improve the literacy rate after the closure of a previously taken up mega project — Total Literacy Movement (TLM).
The TLM was introduced in 1996 by the then AL government, it was cancelled during the BNP rule in 2003 over the allegations of irregularities and mismanagement.
After the AL assumed office in 2009, the Hasina administration, with a seriousness to fulfil the election pledge to ensure 100 percent literacy, had drawn up Tk 3,000-crore mega projects.
But it could not start implementing the projects due to fund crisis with donors declining to finance, prompting the government to shelve the schemes.