Kodla Cluster, Sedum Taluk, Gulbarga District, Karnataka
On the journey to a literate India, ILP has launched a mass scale literacy initiative to attain 100% literacy in the state of karnataka. Fueled by the success of a large scale literacy initiative in Yelandur Taluk in Chamrajnagar, Karnataka, ILP is in the process of defining a roadmap of interventions that target taluks, blocks and entire districts, to encompass the entire state in its program of "Education for All". Beginning with SEDUM Block in Gulbarga district of North Karnataka, ILP has commenced its second mass scale intervention program.
ILP started this project in Kodla Cluster of Sedum Taluk in January 2008 as a part of our ambitious vision of ‘literacy and education for all in Karnataka’. This program will expand over the years to cover the entire Sedum block and ultimately the district.
| Location |
% Total |
% Literacy |
% Literacy |
| 65.4% |
75.3% |
53.7% |
|
| Karnataka |
66.60% |
76.0% |
57.0% |
| Gulbarga District |
50.0% |
62.0% |
38.0% |
| Sedum Taluk |
44.8% |
56.4% |
33.4% |
| Kodla Cluster |
32% |
42.8% |
21.0% |
The target region for the current project is the Kodla cluster, which consists of 13 villages with a total population of about 26,000, in the Sedum Taluk of Gulbarga district. Gulbarga is one of the bottom five districts in terms of literacy and income index in the state of Karnataka, and has an appalling 45,000 children out of school.
Children at work sites
The socio-economic scene in the Sedum Taluk is grim:
- 5098 children out of school,
- 40% attendance in schools,
- Only 5 to 10% of girls completing high school,
- Poor enrollment in child care centers, and prevalent child labor.
Goals:
The main objectives of this program are to lay the foundation of education in the community over the next few years and to develop a scalable model that can create a self sustaining large scale literacy program. Specifically, ILP aims to:
• Ensure all children under 6 years of age are in early child care centers, which provide them proper nutrition, and enable their cognitive development
• Enable retention of children between 6 and 14 in school (preventing drop outs)
• Create awareness of the importance of education and strengthen government initiatives by mobilizing the community to take active participation in them
• Promote high school education for children above 14 years until they complete the 10th grade
• Offer functional literacy for adults (in the second year of the program)
• Develop a model based on the integrated education approach at a block level that can be replicated by the government and other organizations to widen the impact and make it a mass literacy program
