In a mammoth exercise, over 14,300 volunteers fanned out across 100 wards of the city Corporation for a survey as part of the Aksharasree literacy and continuing education project on Saturday.
Nearly 2.24 lakh houses were surveyed as part of Aksharasree, being implemented by the city Corporation and the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority. The remaining houses would be covered over the next two days. Minister for Cooperation Kadakampally Surendran inaugurated the survey at Pound Colony, Thycaud, in the morning by recording the details of colony resident Ramani and her family. The pilot project in Thiruvananthapuram would be extended across the State, he said.
The survey volunteers included school students, literacy mission equivalency course and continuing education project learners, and volunteers.
Aiding the effort
They were supported by people’s representatives, Kudumbasree workers, ASHA workers, library movement members, and office-bearers of residents’ associations. Literacy mission district coordinator P. Prasanth said a majority of the survey volunteers was equivalency course learners, including transgenders, from 100 learning centres here.
The houses were divided into clusters of 50 each, with two volunteers deployed to each cluster. The survey details were codified at the cluster level. The ward-level exercise will be held under the supervision of 100 ‘preraks’ on Sunday. This will be codified at the Corporation level and the survey report published on July 25.
Literacy classes will be held from August 15 in wards where presence of illiterates are recorded. After three months, an examination will be conducted for the learners.
If successful, they could enrol for the Class 4 equivalency course of the literacy mission, and study up to the higher secondary level for free. As many as 1,500 people under Aksharasree could enrol for the next Class 10 equivalency course batch, and 1,000 for the higher secondary equivalency course.
The district panchayat has also decided to take up Aksharasree across the district.
