There are an estimated 140 million children in the age group 6 to 14 years in primary schools. Of these 30 million cannot read, 40 million can recognize a few alphabets, 40 million can read some words, and 30 million can read paragraphs. Over 55 million of these children will not complete four years of school, eventually adding to the illiterate population of India. It is important to know this to appreciate the difficulty of achieving Pratham mission of "every child in school… and learning well".
Pratham, whose activities have reached across
21 states both directly and indirectly
has launched the Read India campaign aimed at achieving
reading and arithmetic proficiency for all children in the
country within and outside the school system. The Campaign will be phased over two years
and has to achieve its goals by 31
st March 2009.
The phasing will be both geographical (propose to target
about 300 districts in the first year and the balance in the
second year) and sequential within each district (there will
be a summer campaign followed up by a low intensity school
campaign during the academic year).....
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Pratham's program for children at risk is mainly for children who are
working and for those who live in remand homes. Pratham instructors
run classes for these children in their work place. Child labor is a
growing problem especially in mega cities. In Mumbai this initiative
started a few years back. Delhi, Surat, Ahmedabad, Patna and Bangalore
have just begun their intervention with working children. Our ultimate
aim is to get every child in the education net, thereby eliminating
child labour. It is a difficult path but at Pratham we are confident
to overcome the hurdles and never give up.....
