BENGALURU: The state government’s ambitious ‘Sakshara Sanmana’ (literacy honour) programme, which aims to provide basic literacy skills to those gram panchayat representatives who lack formal education, was launched on September 1.
The initiative by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department will cover 6,346 people, mainly targeting 5,234 elected representatives.
The programme has been designed not only to provide skills, but also to tackle the persistent challenge that significantly impacts Karnataka -- where one in ten of the state’s 94,775 elected gram panchayat representatives struggle with basic literacy skills. Of these, 9,357, including 7,277 women, are unable to read or write. So the emphasis of the programme is to give these women the tools they need to participate intelligently in local governance and put forth their will locally, according to a press release.
The programme’s major objective is to provide GP representatives with an education in reading, writing and arithmetic.
RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge stressed that the programme aims to ensure that the elected representatives develop the ability to read and comprehend meetings concerning their panchayats, to participate actively in policy-making at the governance level and to encourage active participation of tone in GP meetings and gram/The programme will be carried out in 21 districts from September 1 to October 20. Literacy training daily for two hours, clocking 100 hours across 50 days, will be completed by the participants.
The teachers will receive honorariums, and participants will receive certificates plus an honorarium, said Kharge.