India tackles adult illiteracy
By Richard BlackBBC Science correspondent in Chandigarh
Researchers in India have been giving details of a novel scheme aimed at increasing adult literacy.
It works by teaching people whole words rather than individual letters, and the scientists who developed it say it costs about $2 for each adult.
So far some 40,000 adults have learned to read this way, researchers say.
About 35% of Indians are illiterate, which has a significant impact on the national economy, as well as on the lives of individual people.
The new method has been developed by researchers at the company Tata Consultancy Services.
The results have been presented at the Indian Science Congress in Chandigarh.
Word as image
Conventional literacy programmes which work from the letters of the alphabet upwards can take several years to run and need trained teachers.
Researchers from the Tata Consultancy Services set the goal of teaching people to the level where they could read a newspaper in their own language. They also say the new method is fast and cheap.
"Counting the salary of a supervisor, everything else, the cost of making a person literate is less than 100 Rupees ($2.2)," Dr FC Kohli told the congress.
Dr Kohli said that it took on average 10 weeks before they could read a paper.
The key is that humans are good at recognizing pictures and images, so each word is taught as a picture.
India's literacy targets
Once they have reached this level they start spontaneously to identify and use individual letters.
The programmes run on computer and do not need trained teachers.
Five Indian languages have so far been included, with a further 13 planned, and the software has been given to Indian state governments.
The training package runs on obsolete computers which have been adapted to run local language software. If they go wrong they are thrown away.
"What we recognise, or what we look at, are images. You look at a painting, it's an image, the face is an image.
"So if we can teach them to recognise words in their own language, with these sound 'patterns', then they will be able to recognise the words," said Dr Kohli.
The national government has set a target of reducing illiteracy to 5% by 2020.
It sees India's per capita income lagging behind major competitors such as China, and believes illiteracy is one of the most important reasons why.
Brazil fights illiteracy 'virus'
The Brazilian President, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, has launched a nationwide programme for eradicating illiteracy by 2006 in Latin America's largest country.
"We must approach this as if it were vaccination campaign, where the virus we want to kill is called illiteracy," the president, who is better known as Lula, said in a speech at the Panalto presidential palace on Monday.
One of the goals of his government is to teach three-million people to read and write this year alone.
Recent surveys have concluded that up to 20 million Brazilians are illiterate.
Saying that the literacy campaign was not only the responsibility of federal, state and municipal governments, Lula asked the society at large to contribute.
"All Brazilians who know how to read and write must make their knowledge available, and dedicate part of their time so that others may earn the same right," the president said.
Non-governmental organisations, universities and private enterprises will be involved in the campaign that is estimated to cost about $92.6m.
It can be a familiar and uncomfortable feeling: You're frazzled, discontent and looking for something to make you happy and fulfilled. You may become enthusiastic about something new in your life—a job, a relationship, a home—but in time you completely lose that excitement and joy. Nothing seems to satisfy you. Maybe you occasionally explode over something small and insignificant.Psychologist Alan Downs calls this form of low-grade depression "chronic discontent"— and he has suffered from it himself.
| Vocabulary | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
SpecializedTerms
lowgrade (adj) 輕度的
of a lesser or Inferior quality or level
trappings (n pl) 裝飾物
outward things that are part of something; accessories
dysfunction (n) 官能障礙
a problem or fault in something, an instance when something doesn't behave or work normally
double whammy (n phr) 禍不單行
a situation when two unpleasant things happen at almost the same time (informal)
Vocabulary Focus
blues (n pl)
feelings of sadness
chronic (adj)
continuing for a long time, especially of a disease or something bad
frazzled (adj)
extremely tired in a nervous or slightly anxious way after a lot of mental or physical effort
fed up (adj phr)
bored, annoyed or disappointed, especially by something one has experienced for too long
obsessed (adj)
unable to stop thinking about something: too interested in or worried about something
brink (n)
the point where a new or different situation is about to begin; the edge
wake-up call (idiom)
something that makes one realize he or she needs to take action to change a situation
backdoor (adj)
relating to something that comes from an indirect, sometimes secret approach