Mizoram Aims Cent Per Cent Literacy by March

Aizawl, Jan 26 : As part of a rapid action total literacy campaign (RATLC), the Mizoram government has reached out to migrant labourers, who move from one place to another.

Officials of adult education wing under the school education directorate has distributed reading and writing equipment to Santhali labourers employed in road projects and stone quarries on the outskirts of the state capital a few days back, an official source said today.

''The officials are fully engaged in teaching slum dwellers on the outskirts of the city,'' the source said.

The special literacy drive launched last year aims at making the northeastern state fully literate by March this year, officials said.

''The ambitious mission was aimed to make Mizoram a 100 per cent literate state before completion of the 2011 census in March,'' School Education Minister Lalsawta said.

According to 2001 census, the literacy rate in the state was 88.80 per cent, next only to Kerala's 90.86 per cent, against the national literacy rate of 64.84 per cent.

A latest survey conducted jointly by the Mizoram government and a New Delhi-based research body in 2009, the mountainous state, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, had achieved 90.27 per cent (of the state's one million population) literacy rate till 2008.

According to the minister, priority to implement the multi-pronged RATLC would be given in less literacy areas of Lawngtlai, Lunglei and Mamit districts of the state's eight districts.

Mizoram is a Christian-dominated state and one of the beneficial results of Missionary activities was the spread of education. The Missionaries introduced the Roman script for the Mizo language and formal education. The cumulative result is the present high percentage of literacy.