Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, State Minister V. Sivankutty and others during the State level inauguration of New India Literacy programme, at Ayyankali hall, in Thiruvananthapuram on March 14, 2023.
| Photo Credit: ANI
If the gains of public education are to be sustained, knowledge and cultural consciousness should be nurtured in society through informal education, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
He was speaking after inaugurating the New India Literacy programme of the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
The Chief Minister said the government viewed informal education as part of public education. The State could make progress since it realised the importance of literacy in the spread of knowledge and set the goals of literacy for everyone and then that of information literacy. Libraries, reading rooms, and collectives for discussion were means of informal education. From that perspective, the literacy mission was functioning as an informal university.
The government, he said, was attempting to transform Kerala into a knowledge society. Its foundation was literacy. Only in a society that had excellent literacy could knowledge dissemination take place easily. Digital literacy too had a role in this. Besides prioritising continuing education, attempts to wipe out digital divide too was being made by the mission as part of the New Indian Literacy programme. Skill development too would be ensured, the Chief Minister said.
The New Indian Literacy programme is being implemented by the Union and the State governments. In the first phase, illiterates who are above 25 years of age among categories such as women, girls, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, construction workers, those living in colonies and coastal areas, differently abled, transgender persons, minority communities will be made literate. Classes will be held using digital media.
The digital content is being readied by Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education and the literacy handbook for the State Council of Educational Research and Training.
Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty presided over the inaugural. Literacy mission director A.G. Oleena was present.
