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What is ADULT EDUCATION ? What are Government do for the education of adults
Adult Education aims at extending educational options to those adults, who have lost the opportunity and have crossed the age of formal education, but now feel a need for learning of any type, including, basic education (literacy), skill development (Vocational Education) and equivalency.

Steps Taken by the Government for adult education

With the objective of promoting literacy and adult education, a series of programmes have been introduced since the First Five Year Plan period, the most prominent being the National Literacy Mission (NLM), that was launched in 1988 to impart functional literacy to non-literates in the age group of 15-35 years in a time bound manner. By the end of the 10th Plan period, NLM had made 127.45 million persons literate, of which, 60% were females, 23% belonged to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 12% to Scheduled Tribes (STs). 597 districts were covered under Total Literacy Campaigns of which 502 reached Post Literacy stage and 328 reached Continuing Education stage. At the end of the programme, 95 districts were under Total Literacy Campaign, 174 under Post-Literacy Programme and 328 District under Continuing Education Programme. It led to an increase of 12.63% in literacy – during 1991-2001 the highest increase in any decade. Female literacy increased by 14.38%, SC literacy by 17.28% and ST literacy by 17.50%.

Despite significant accomplishments illiteracy continues to be a grave concern. 2001 Census recorded male literacy at 75.26%, while female literacy remained at an unacceptable level of 53.67%. Census of 2001 also revealed that gender and regional disparities in literacy continued to persist. Therefore, to bolster Adult Education and Skill Development, Government introduced two new schemes, namely Saakshar Bharat and Scheme for Support to Voluntary Agencies for Adult Education and Skill Development, during the 11th Plan.


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