Abstract—Proportion of adult illiterates has improved in
many countries over the last decade. Yet, the number of adult
illiterates in India has remained the highest at 287 million since
1990 to 2010 because of the population growth. India constitutes
of more than one-thirds of the world’s adult illiterates which
needs serious attention from the government. Defining literacy
has been a debate in India, as in many developing nations.
Literacy should be recognised as a continuum and as the laying
stone of lifelong learning. Adaptation of skills and Information
Communication Technologies (ICTs) with functional literacy
skills as base for lifelong learning has to be a core element of the
basic education agenda in India post 2015. The goal, targets and
indicators for literacy have to be defined in a way that makes
sense in relation to an overarching human capability agenda.
Furthermore, multiple literacy skill levels need to be recognized.
In India there is need to expand formal and non-formal adult
education with the concept of life-long learning using ICT. It is
suggested in the paper, how India can develop a strong and
effective ICT based education system to impart literacy.
Index Terms—Literacy, ICT based education, life-long
learning, India, information communication technology.
Syed Nitas Iftekhar is with Centre of Excellence in Public Policy and
Governance at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, India (e-mail:
nitas711@gmail.com).
Hyeon Jihye is with the Institute of International and Comparative
Education, Beijing Normal University and UNESCO Beijing, China (e-mail:
sophiehyeon@gmail.com).
Cite: Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Hyeon Jihye, "ICT Based Education for Literacy in India: Vision Beyond 2015," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 388-393, 2016.