With an objective to enhance the literacy rate of the district, a tripartite MOU was signed among the Rotary Club, Baleswar, the Baleswar district administration and Rotary International Literacy Mission (RILM) on Wednesday here.
District Collector DB Shinde, National Committee member of RILM and chairman, Baleswar Total Literacy Campaign Shantanu Kumar Pani and District Education Officer Prativa Manjari Das, besides several other Government officers and functionaries of the Rotary Club including Pradipta Panda, Sourav Behera, KM Mohapatra, Debasis Das and S Kar were present.
Shinde lauding the initiative of the RILM and Rotary Club assured all possible help in identifying the beneficiaries across all blocks of the district. He also assured financial help.
“This is the second major programme after Polio eradication which Rotary International has undertaken in India. The illiteracy in Baleswar district as per 2011 Census was 20.21 percent. And our objective is to uplift them by providing training through Akhyara Sathi within three months. Currently, the programme is running in 18 centres of six villages in two blocks of Nilgiri and Remuna. Further, the programme would be implemented in all the blocks,"said RILM National Committee member and chairman, Baleswar Total Literacy Campaign Pani.
“ Each Akhyara Sahi is paid a remuneration of Rs 175 per student who would teach the identified students of their village four days in a week and the classes would be held in the evening. The beneficiaries would be identified following a survey by volunteers across 3,051 villages of the district and after three months there would be a test to ensure one under the training programne becomes literate. Person above 15 years age would be eligible for admission into the programme," he added.
The RILM has designed an excellent syllabus in the vernacular Odia language and developed methodology after having wide range consultations with the experts to teach the illiterate. We are highly thankful to the district administration for assuring us all kind of help for implementation of this programme,” he said further.
