Editorials

Illiteracy Ails Our Entrepreneurs

The Director of a leading international trade portal informed me recently that there are umpteen importers all over the world\\\'s regions looking for Indian ethnic handicrafts but few entrepreneurs in India are able to reach them. It is largely due to lack of education especially the internet knowledge.
 
India has a fund of talent and capability in our millions of micro entrepreneurs who quietly work from their homes producing world class master pieces in a variety of handicrafts. No attention has been given to such small entrepreneurs carrying a big potential for exporting their produce.
 
Government of India started National Literacy Mission (NLM) setting a goal to attain full literacy, i.e., a sustainable threshold level of 75 percent by 2007. The mission sought to achieve this goal by imparting functional literacy to non-literates in the 15-35 age group being the focus of attention as this age group falls in the productive and reproductive period of life. The goal was not met and the achievements fell short of the national expectations.
 
Thanks to the Ministry of HRD, the NLM has now been forgotten and done away with. The Department of Adult Education (DAE) which has been doing a creditable job suddenly found itself unimportant, unwanted and unworthy. What was the need for the NLM to call it a day even while it had a huge task before it is a big question which no one in the DAE had an answer?
 
On the International Literacy Day celebrations in Delhi in September, 2009 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the Saakshar Bharat Mission (SBM) announcing that “our government attaches the highest importance to human resource development. That is why some of the finest minds in our government have been chosen as Ministers for the very important and prestigious ministry. Both Kapil Sibal and D. Purandeswari constitute a team of which any country can be legitimately proud of as nation builders.” It remains to be seen if the SBM entails any programme to bring education at the doorsteps of our poor invisible entrepreneurs mired in the darkness of ignorance for long.
 
Meanwhile, let’s hail the new \\\'ism\\\'! Sibalism! It stands for getting the desired grades without being examined (in his case) by the Resident Professor of 7, Race Course Road.