Kerala - Malappuram District
Electricity? No E-Literacy…

Malappuram is a district that evokes great interest. It is proudly promoted as having achieved not only 100% literacy, but also 100% e-literacy.

What is E-Literacy?
At different times we have heard different explanations. It could mean that everyone in the state is able to negotiate their way around the mysteries of a hard drive and keyboard or maybe just perform basic operations.

In our quest to find out more about e-literacy we chatted and interviewed a number of people. We met four men at the side of the road watching a group of boys trying to free juicy mangoes from a tree at the roadside. Speaking with the men, they initially thought we were talking about electricity rather than e-literacy. Delving further we learned that they were indeed aware of computers and their potential. One gentleman described the concept of a computer as 'magic'. A fair point, which I would agree with in some respects!

Chatting to two men who had been drinking at a teashop. Abdul M.K, a ticket collector and Massoor C.K. a 'fabricator' who has just returned from Dubai. Mansoor reiterated that he had not heard of the Electricity campaign. (Probably my pronunciation was at fault!) Abdul knew of computers and was proud to announce that his children had access to a computer at school, but that he himself had no inclination or purpose to acquire computer literacy.

Whilst running a day earlier we met a school teacher, his name was Mohammed. He explained that he taught a class of 45 students in a school of 500 students in total. The school was government funded and run. The students had some 40 computers available to them. An impressive ratio of students to computers I think you will agree. Especially so considering the fact that we were deep in rural Kerala. The village had approximately 300 families living there, of which (apparently) at least one member from every household was currently working overseas. Certainly a requirement for e-literacy was there.
 
In a town called Perinthalmanna (about 15kms from Malappuram) we came across a computer training class. A second floor room run by a very eloquent and confident young man. He himself was a teacher who genuinely aspired to building the capacity of others, both young and old. He dd tell me that most of his students tended to be from the younger generation, even though the Akshaya campaign (name for the district wide e-literacy campaign) is focused on people over the age of eighteen (to supposedly help them get past their phobia's of computers). He went on to tell us that as the number of Keralaites living abroad grows, so do the number of email-literate households.

The realities of 100% e-literacy in Mahalappuram most likely belie the truth as promoted through the Akshaya campaign. I would suggest the percentage is far short of 100%. The e-literacy campaign in Mahalappuram strikes me as a fantastic aspiration, which has yet to be achieved in totality.

E-literacy – A Solid Aspiration
There is no fault whatsoever in aiming high. As the local computer infrastructure develops and accessibility increases so will the level of literacy. The benefits will be far reaching and inevitably greater levels of knowledge and empowerment will be achieved.
I have never come across such e-literacy aspirations in the developing world in my short career. Have you? Can you share experiences?
Read more about the Akshaya campaign at the website below.
http://www.akshaya.net/akshaya/project

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