A YouTube interview about the ReadingWise/Tara Akshar literacy programme that claims to teach basic literacy and numeracy in 45 days using accelerated-learning methods (software, instructor-led sessions, cards and books). The video presents a case study of Sito, a woman who gained literacy and accessed government disability support after 45 days, and cites program metrics: delivered in India, Myanmar and the UK, taught in Hindi/English/Punjabi (Bengali and Urdu in development), judged best practice by the Indian government, about $150 cost per student, ~65,000 women made literate to date, DFID-funded scale-up to 300 villages with 300 instructors and 300 laptops, and a London trial reporting an average reading-age gain of ~9 months in 20 hours. Victor (programme lead) describes two years of piloting, scientific monitoring with academic partners, and ongoing efforts to extend the programme toward employability training.
Questions this video answers
45 days (less than two hours a day in the example given).
$150 per student.
Hindi, English and Punjabi (Bengali and Urdu in development).
About 65,000 women.
Set up in 300 villages with 300 instructors and 300 laptops (DFID provided funding).
Chapters
There are a billion people who are illiterate on our planet. They can't read, can't write and can't participate in the economy in a meaningful way. Lack of education stops people from being able to lift themselves out of grinding poverty. Lack of basic education stalls so many hopes and dreams. Imagine if we didn't have access to education when we were younger, where would we be now? Doesn't everyone on our planet have a right to fulfil their potential? What if I said we could provide basic literacy training in 45 days? Imagine if we really could bring literacy to the poor quickly and efficiently. What kind of world could we create? Readingwise uses accelerated learning methods including advanced memory techniques which works for both children and adults. It uses computer software and an instructor, well as special playing cards and writing books. The instructor doesn't have to be a trained teacher, but does have to do the authorized training course. It's run in a room with the instructor and the students. Sito is a poor 26 year old villager living in the outskirts of Delhi. She was diagnosed with polio at birth and has not been able to walk all her life. This has also meant that she has never been able to go to school. She never wanted to be a burden on her family and so has made every effort to do all her work herself. The opening of a powerful new education course called Reading Wise Tara Aksha in Hindi in her locality has enabled her to read and write as well as understand basic numeracy skills. Initially, Sito's sister in law would piggyback her to school 1km away. However, when Sito started to read, she came to know about many government schemes available for disabled people and she was able to apply for a wheelchair. Now she enjoys her ride to school every day. Seato now motivates other villagers to join the Reading Wives program and also teaches others to read and write at her local centre. At her age, she never thought she'd be able to do it. And how long do you think it took her to read and write? 3 years, 18 months? It only took 45 days. That's it. 45 days to go from being completely illiterate to having basic literacy and less than two hours a day. And now her life is transformed. 45 days. That was it. Too good to be true. Well, Reading Wise has Now had over 100 people attend its courses across the world in literacy and life skills. Our courses are mainly in India, Myanmar and the uk, with a very high success rate in the exams. Traditionally, we've thought of funding education in terms of building schools, infrastructure and libraries, which all cost huge amounts of money and take years. And even then, the quality of the teaching isn't guaranteed. But imagine if the solution is much cheaper and quicker and gets to the heart of the issue. Quality teaching and results. Believe it or not, the cost of the Readingwise system is at just $150 per student to learn to read and write and basic maths. How much is your education worth to you? Imagine a world where everyone could read and write. How incredible would that be? It would give a better chance to those in poverty as well as raise the prosperity of the entire planet. Well, that dream is now a reality. With the innovative solution that Readingwise provides, It really is a breakthrough whose time has now come. So far, the readingwise system has been set up in Hindi, English and Punjabi, and they're now working on Bengali and Urdu. But it can be set up for any language in the world. Tara Akshar the Hindi version of Reading Wise has been judged as the best practice by the Indian government. It is now an official part of the Indian Literacy Project. But much more work needs to be done as there are about 350 million complete illiterates in India and another 350 million who are too illiterate to get any formal training or education. Not only is the system being used in developing countries, it's been successfully trialled. In London, a research trial in several schools showed remarkable results. They showed that, on average, children with reading difficulties can improve their reading age by roughly nine months in just 20 hours. Victor, it's great to meet you. So can you tell me a little bit more about literacy in India?
Well, one third of the country is illiterate, completely illiterate. But another third is what we call functionally illiterate, which means they're not literate enough to get training, to get employed, to get skilled jobs. And unless you can get employability and skills going, you're never going to get the mass of the people out of poverty. So it's very, very important as a first step to poverty alleviation that we do solve the literacy problem.
How did you decide on the kind of program that you'd create?
Well, I went off to see various experts on how people learn to read and read the books and read the research papers and came to the conclusion nobody really knew how it was done. Now, my background is mental health, so I know a thing or two about memories. And we sat down with our team and we said, we're going to devise a program for literacy from scratch. And the important thing is it's got to work within 30, 40 days, because otherwise people will lose interest and the dropout rate will be enormous. So we spent two years wandering around Indian villages trying out this, trying out that trial and error, using lots of different pedagogical techniques, until we got it right. It took a full two years to do. And we know we got it right because we had our first formal class, we had a graduation ceremony, and There was about 18 women who, six weeks earlier, been completely illiterate. And each one of them, in turn, grabbed the microphone and read something. One of them had written a poem. I mean, written a poem. I mean, when she'd been illiterate six weeks earlier and she read it out, we have it on video. And it was just at that point I lost it. I don't normally get very emotional, but I thought, wow, we've done it. And after that, it was just a question of scaling up. We reproduced it in hundreds of villages and we've been doing it ever since. We've got 8,000 women on course right now doing that same programme.
So can you tell me a little bit more about how you knew that the programme would be a success?
Measuring success is quite difficult. We took a very scientific approach. After all, we're sitting here in the Royal Institution, which is the oldest independent scientific research institute in the world. So we wanted to do this properly. And we've consulted with PhDs and experts in different universities all around the world, and they have been monitoring us and testing us and writing research papers. So we wanted to make sure that not only did we get great results, but we could prove it as well.
And what happened next?
The next step was to get funding. And we were very lucky because dfid, the British government, came in with some funding and enabled us to set up in 300 villages, we with 300 instructors and 300 laptops. And then other governments helped us out. Canadian government and Oxfam and the Ikea Foundation. But still, we were only scratching the surface. Even now, we've only. Only we've made 65,000 women literate, but there's another several hundred million to go. I mean, this is something that needs to be done on a very, very big scale.
Are you developing any new programs?
Oh, yes, we're developing programs all the time. Our goal is to take people from total illiteracy all the way up to employability, because without employability, you're never going to solve the poverty problem. And it's not just an Indian problem, it's not just a Third World problem. There's literacy problems, there's training problems, there's employability problems in the UK and the USA and Western countries as well. So right now, not only are we working in India and other developing countries, but we're also working in the uk.
Can you tell me a little bit more about the work that you're doing in the uk?
Well, India was turning over pretty well, so we came back to the UK and we realized there's a huge problem with English schools because there's always a percentage in every school who can't read properly. And it's not because of lack of intelligence, it's just the way the human mind works. A proportion do have difficulty reading. So we set about building a remedial program to help the readers who are struggling in English schools. And it's called Reading Wise English. And we trialled it in five schools in London and in Northampton, and that's what we've been doing this year. Our research results have just come out and we've had an extraordinary success with it. So now we want to make it available to every school in the country.
Thank you so much, Victor. It's been great chatting to you.
