GANGADHARPUR SIKSHANMANDIR

SK REJAUL MED : 3RD SEM ROLL NO:- 41

FUNCTIONAL LITERACY

INTRODUCTION :- A term initially defined for UNESCO by William S. Gray (The

Teaching of Reading and Writing, 1956, p. 21) as the training of adults to ‘meet independently
the reading and writing demands placed on them’. Currently, the phrase describes those
approaches to LITERACY which stress the acquisition of appropriate verbal, cognitive, and
computational skills to accomplish practical ends in culturally specific settings. Although also
labelled survival literacy and reductionist literacy because of its emphasis on minimal levels of
competency and the preparation of workers for jobs, functional literacy is defended by
proponents as a way to help people negotiate successfully in their societies. The notion of
literacy as a utilitarian tool arose in 1942 when the US Army had to defer 433,000 draftees
because they could not understand ‘the kinds of written instruction … needed for carrying out
basic military functions or tasks’. In 1947, the US Bureau of the Census began defining literacy
quantitatively, describing anyone with less than five years' schooling as functionally illiterate.
With the passing of the Adult Education Act of 1966, 12 years of education became the literacy
standard in the US, while in Britain, the right-to-read movements of the 1970s characterized
functional literacy as the ability to: (1) read well enough to perform job activities successfully,
and (2) understand printed messages. Over the decades, as societies have developed both
technical innovations and new language formats and tasks, the definition of functional literacy
has been modified to meet the changed demands. See ILLITERACY.

OBJECTIVES:

In quantitative terms, the Mission seeks to impart functional literacy to all non-
literate persons in 15-35 age group.

In qualitative terms, functional literacy implies:

 Self-reliance in 3 R's
 Becoming aware of the causes of deprivation and moving towards
amelioration of their condition by participating in the process of development
 Skill improvement to improve economic status and general well being.
 Imbibing values of national integration, conservation of environment,
women's equality and observance of small family norms etc.
Method
Dr. Frank Laubach began his literacy work in 1929 in the Philippines where he was a missionary. Now,
his work is carried on by Laubach Literacy international, an institution that has worked in almost every
country in the world.

The "Laubach method" is a comprehensive system that includes a teaching methodology, a specific set of
materials, the use of volunteer teachers and the publication of literature for new literates.

This strategy uses a one-on-one method, called "each one teach one," by which one literate volunteer
teaches one illiterate person to read. That new literate then volunteers time to teach another illiterate
person. The eventual goal is that the whole community achieves literacy.

Advantages of the Laubach approach are the speed with which adults learn to read in their own language;
the fact that each learner is taught on a one-to-one basis and can continue by teaching someone else; and
the ability to reach many people in a sort of chain reaction.

The Laubach method uses a highly structured curriculum and standardized teaching materials. The basic
Laubach teaching tool is a pre-designed picture-letter-word chart. Each picture on the chart has been
carefully chosen to represent both the shape of the letter to be learned and a word that begins with that
letter. In the Spanish language example on page 20, the letter P is represented by a man with his weekly
pay (pago) and another man who is unemployed (vago) represents the letter "V". The teacher uses the
chart to help the learner recognize the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they represent.

As soon as the learner understands the picture-letter-word associations the teacher moves on to simple
stories in a reading primer that is keyed to the words on the chart. This first primer has a vocabulary of
only 120 words; it is followed by a second primer that adds another 1000 words to the vocabulary list.

APPLICATION STATUS OF LITERACY SKILL

Prior to the British era, education in Indian commenced under the supervision of a guru in traditional
schools called gurukuls. The gurukuls were supported by public donation and were one of the
earliest forms of public school offices. However these Gurukuls catered to the Upper castes males of
the Indian society and the majority population received basic literacy at temples along with trade
apprenticeship as per their caste based professions
The education system in India was systematically destroyed by the Britisḥ For example under Raja
Ranjit singh ji Punjab was almost 100% literate. According to British Historian G.W Leitner in his
work published in 1881, The number of students attaining education dropped nearly 50% from
Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Sikh empire to British Colonization. Punjab had more scholars and
intellectuals then anywhere but after the British took over all changed. The British systematically
burnt books in Punjab as part of their revenge for 1857 war of independence.

The British period

In the colonial era, the community funded gurukul system and temple-based charity education,
began to decline as the centrally funded institutions promoted by the British began to gradually take
over and the British budget for education of the entire country was less than half of the budget for
the city of New York at the time. Between 1881–82 and 1946–47, the number of English primary
schools grew from 82,916 to 134,866 and the number of students in English Schools grew from
2,061,541 to 10,525,943. Literacy rates in accordance to British in India rose from an estimated 3.2
per cent in 1872, to 16.1 per cent in 1941.
In 1944, the Government of British India presented a plan, called the Sergeant Scheme for the
educational reconstruction of India, with a goal of producing 100% literacy in the country within 40
years, i.e. by 1984.[35] Although the 40-year time-frame was derided at the time by leaders of
the Indian independence movement as being too long a period to achieve universal literacy,[35] India
had only just crossed the 74% level by the 2011 census.
It should also be noted that the British India censuses identify a significant difference in literacy
rates, by: sex, religion, caste and state of residence,[36] e.g.:

Post-Independence
The provision of universal and compulsory education for all children in the age group of 6–14 was a
cherished national ideal and had been given overriding priority by incorporation as a Directive Policy
in Article 45 of the Constitution, but it is still to be achieved more than half a century since the
Constitution was adopted in 1949. Parliament has passed the Constitution 86th Amendment Act,
2002, to make elementary education a Fundamental Right for children in the age group of 6–14
years.] In order to provide more funds for education, an education cess of 2 per cent has been
imposed on all direct and indirect central taxes through the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2004.[38]
In 2000–01, there were 60,840 pre-primary and pre-basic schools, and 664,041 primary and junior
basic schools. Total enrolment at the primary level has increased from 19,200,000 in 1950–51 to
109,800,000 in 2001–02. The number of high schools in 2000–01 was higher than the number of
primary schools at the time of independence.
The literacy rate grew from 18.33 per cent in 1951, to 74.04 per cent in 2011.[41] During the same
period, the population grew from 361 million to 1,210 million.

CONCLUSION :-
Functional literacy is the ability to create and use printed and written materials connected with different
contexts which is mastered by the individuals in the process of permanent learning for gaining the
possibility of achieving goals and realizing personal potential as a personality, specialist in some field of
economy or social sphere and apply the acquired skills in the everyday activities of the modern
knowledge society. As the result of the conducted analysis, such forms of adult functional literacy as
autonomous, critical, ideological, dysfunctional, document, narrative / prose, numeracy or quantitative,
integral literacy have been determined. According to the policy of the governments of language
communities, the structural-functional scheme of the organisation of the Belgian system of adult
education has been created. Federal ministers remain responsible for providing and financing
educational leave for the employees of the private sector of the economy. The Flemish system of adult
education consists of: public educational institutions providing formal basic and vocational adult
education; non-formal educational establishments realising the learning facilities in the network of non-
governmental organisations which enable all-round personal development of adults; and informational
service coordinating the activities of different providers of adult education.