Calcutta Foundation

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

About Read India Campaign

It goes without saying that learning to read is the first and most essential step towards education. The ability to read is a fundamental skill upon which all further formal learning depends. Once a large number of children can read fluently, not only can they tackle books with greater ease but they can go well beyond the curriculum by themselves, enhancing their knowledge without formal teaching. To create a learned society is the greatest aspect of nation building.

How fluently can children read simple text?

How confidently can children do basic arithmetic?

Reporting findings from all rural districts of India , ASER 2006 (Annual Status of Education Report) indicates that all over India :

In Std 1: 38 % children cannot read letters
In Std 1: 54 % children cannot recognize numbers

In Std 2: 34 % children cannot read simple words
In Std 2: 75% children cannot do simple subtraction

In Std 5: 47 % children are still unable to read a Std 2 level text easily
In Std 5: 55 % children cannot do a simple division problem.

Based on the Learning to Read experience and ASER 2006 results, Pratham has launched the ‘READ INDIA CAMPAIGN’, partnered by Calcutta Foundation in West Bengal .

The Read India Campaign by Calcutta Foundation and Pratham is an effort to promote the skill of fluent reading among all children of rural India in their vernacular, where all the villages in 18 districts are being targeted over the next two years, to promote the interest in reading among rural children.

Read India Campaign is not a program trying to impart or propagate any particular method of teaching. The focus of Read India Campaign is on the sustainability of the child’s reading interest, habit and skills.

It is an accepted fact that there are not many useful books and story books written, that target rural children. Shortage of proper reading material generally de-motivates the child and makes him indifferent to reading. Lack of reading practice further deteriorates the existing reading potential in a child. A child may have developed the technique of reading through training from the government schools or other informal schools run by welfare organizations. The main aim of Read India Campaign is to ensure that every child in rural India gets the opportunity to read interesting literature, keeping in mind the interests and reading capacity of the child. Hence the focus is not the method of learning,but simply facilitating the habit of reading.

In this regard Pratham is developing and publishing reading material for different levels of readers in the villages. During the distribution of these book packets at the grass root level, there will be definite support provided by village volunteers to help the children read the books, whenever assistance is required. A brief training will be provided by the CIP team to these village volunteers, to be able to guide the children properly.

The Read India Campaign is being implemented in June 2007, as a pilot project in two districts of West Bengal (Dakshin Dinajpur and North 24 Parganas). For the pilot phase, Calcutta Foundation and Pratham will be utilizing their own resources to carry out the campaign.

DISTRICT	No of Blocks	No of Villages	No of Block Coordinators	No of Cluster Coordinators
Dakshin Dinajpur	8	1579	8	160
North 24 Parganas	22	1581	22	160
TOTAL	30	3160	30	320

The success review of the pilot campaign in these two districts will be carried out by the end on August, after which the Read India Campaign will be extended to more districts.

Funding sources will be approached for supporting the extension of the Read India Campaign.

The Read India Campaign in West Bengal targets to ensure a better and fluent reading capacity among the rural children of all 18 districts, by the end of March 2009.