INTRODUCTION

Illiteracy is a universal problem, and even Europe and America arc not free from this scourge. Illiteracy is not a problem peculiar to South Asia. It is estimated that in 1995 there were 885.1 millions of illiterate people in the world.¹ In the 25th September 1989 issue of Newsweek, an article titled “When Europeans can not read” reported that 16 million Europeans are illiterates. To arrest this embarrassing situation, the European Commission planned to declare 1990 the “European Book and Reading Year.” ²

Illiteracy is a major hindrance to the programme of human development, and the universality of the problem has led the UNESCO to declare the year 1990 “The International Year of Literacy.” To focus the whole world’s attention to it, an international education conference on the theme was organized in March 1990 in Thailand by UNESCO in collaboration with UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank. In doing so, UNESCO wanted to draw the attention of the whole world focusing on illiteracy, so that it can be wiped out by the year 2000.²

The situation of adult illiteracy in SAARC countries

The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) was formally launched in Dhaka in December 1985.³ The heads of seven Asian countries jointly pledged to work together for a common future. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are the members of SAARC, which comprises one-fifth of the world’s population. Table 1 shows the distribution of illiterate population in the SAARC countries.

TABLE 1 . Illiterate population in the SAARC countries

Illiteracy in SAARC countries constitute a serious socio-economic and political problem. The figure for some individual countries is as high as 60% or
more. Table 2 shows the percentage of male and female illiterate population in
the SAARC countries.
TABLE 2. Situation of illiterate population in the SAARC countries in 1995 ¹

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