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The big news is that Goa is making a concerted attempt to attain 100 percent literacy before the end of the year. The announcement on this is expected to be made on December 19, 2024, the 63rd anniversary of Goa’s liberation.
The question is whether the State will meet this deadline that it has set for itself, for there would be still a few thousands in Goa who are not literate.
News reports coming in say that the Goa government has sought a list of illiterate persons in the State. The Directors of Municipal Administration and Panchayats have been asked to instruct the municipal chief officers and village panchayat secretaries to provide this list of illiterate persons in their respective jurisdictions. It will be no easy task for them.
As per the Goa government website, the literacy rate in the State is 80 percent; as per the 2011 census, the literacy rate is 88.70 percent; as per the National Family Health Survey 2019-21, the literacy rate is 93.2 percent.
The Directors of Municipal Administration and Panchayats have been asked to instruct the municipal chief officers and village panchayat secretaries to provide this list of illiterate persons in their respective jurisdictions. It will be no easy task for them.
Though the figures vary, and the State government website shows the lowest rate, Goa’s literacy rate is still higher than that of the National average that stays somewhere below 80 percent.
The purpose of the list of illiterate people is to make them literate and meet the deadline set by the State government to declare Goa as 100 percent literate. While this is indeed an ambitious aim, Goa has already made efforts towards achieving this milestone, though these efforts do not appear to have been quite enough.
Currently, Kerala is the only state in India to have achieved 100 percent literacy. Goa, if it achieves this milestone, will be the second state.
In July last, it had been announced that 3,000 senior citizens had been trained to read and write, following which the chief minister had said that the literacy rate in Goa was above 98 percent, and that, barring the talukas of Quepem, Canacona and Sanguem, the illiterate population in the rest of Goa has been identified and trained.
The focus now is on these three talukas, all in South Goa, and volunteers have been sought to train those who are still illiterate. With only a small area to be covered and a small population – less than two percent as per the CM’s statement – the deadline appears feasible.
The focus now is on these three talukas, all in South Goa, and volunteers have been sought to train those who are still illiterate.
Yet, if the figure of above 98 percent literate population is taken into account, then approximately, Goa has an illiterate population of over 16,000 persons, that is considering just one percent as illiterate, so it could be closer to 20,000 illiterate persons.
Assuming that these are spread across the State, besides the three focus talukas, how long will it take the municipal chief officers and panchayat secretaries to compile this list of illiterates in their respective municipalities and panchayats? And once that is done, will there be enough time to train them and make them literate?
It is indeed sad to note that there are still people in Goa who are illiterate. One would have expected that former governments would have taken up literacy as one of their prime objectives, on par with infrastructure development.
With India pushing for digital transactions and almost all government departments and banks going digital, basic literacy is a must in the country and Goa has to show the way. So, yes, 100 literacy for the State is the way to go and we should do everything to achieve it.
