In a recent survey conducted by Dehradun district administration to identify illiterate people in the district, it was revealed that about 35,000 people have never been to school. Recently, the district administration announced its plan to end illiteracy from the district by January 26 and to achieve this goal, the administration asked people to volunteer to teach illiterate people in various areas of the district under the Padho Doon Badho Doon campaign.
Informing about the campaign, the chief development officer (CDO), Nitika Khandelwal said that a survey conducted with the help of Anganwadi workers to identify illiterate people above the age of 11 years in the district was recently finished in which about 25,517 illiterate people have been identified and the data of about 10,000 illiterate people will be available soon. Meanwhile, it was also revealed in the survey that there are 339 girls aged 11 years to 14 years who are school dropouts and did not finish their school education due to their families.
Though the number of illiterate people is quite high in the district, only about 40 volunteers have registered in the portal so far to teach such people.
According to Khandelwal, the classes of some people have already started in some areas and will begin soon in other areas too. She informed that any educated person can volunteer to teach illiterate people of the district and contribute in eradicating illiteracy in Dehradun district. As Khandelwal stated, there would be five students under one volunteer who has to give at least 25 hours to the students in a three-month period. The administration has given liberty to the volunteers to arrange and schedule their classes as per their will by coordinating with others. Besides, the volunteers will not have to go too far from their respective areas as the administration is providing them space in a school in the area a volunteer wants to take classes in. One can register at http://dsclservices.org.in/volunteer.php to volunteer to teach illiterate people of the district.
