THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : It is a mammoth mission to wipe out illiteracy. In the 100 wards in the capital city, the Kerala State Literacy Mission is set to convert all the illiterates into literates through its unique literacy mission. The project christened 'Aksharasree' is being implemented jointly by the KSLM and city corporation wherein classes up till higher secondary will be given to the illiterates. Aksharasree is set to infuse a new sense of spirit into the informal education activities led by the KSLM.
“This is a first of its kind project where a local body is spearheading the literacy project. The city corporation is fully funding the project. The pilot project is being launched in the city. And once we ascertain the success level of this, we will implement this across all the districts in the state,” says PS Sreekala, director, (KSLM).
“If the local bodies co-operate with us in this, then we can easily reach out to all the illiterates in the state,” she adds. The Praveshanolsavam of the 'students' will be held at the University Senate Hall in the city on Sunday at 2 pm.
The corporation and KSLM had conducted a survey to ascertain the number illiterates in all the wards in the city. The survey has found that there are 11,764 illiterates in the city and women form a major chunk of it. 7,256 women are estimated to be illiterates. 1175 individuals in the category belonged to the SC community while 147 belonged to the ST community.
The most number of illiterates were found in the Bheemapally ward which stood at 755.
Of this 426 were women and 339 were men. According to the survey report, literacy was observed to be the lowest in the coastal regions.The lowest number of illiterates were found in Kuravankonam and Nanthancode wards and the number stood at 5 each. The 'students' can pursue the equivalency courses up till higher secondary level.