Literacy has to be seen as a key element for the development of all communities and society at large. It is fundamental to learning of all kinds and the basis of a knowledgeable society. Literacy leads to empowerment by enabling people to access new opportunities. In societies today, both developed and developing, the pace of economy and social change is such that learning continues throughout life. As society increasingly creates wealth by gathering information and processing it into useful knowledge, literacy also demands change.

Although there have been a few initiatives on literacy, but they have failed to deliver the expected outputs. There are several reasons for this. One of the key learnings that has come out of these failures is that literacy initiatives should also focus on the use of technology. The use of technology means using devices or systems which lead to outcomes that not only improve productivity – but, in addition, help in large scale implementation. But technology however, comes at a cost. It needs front-end capital investment, the absence of which can act as a barrier to its spreading throughout the economy.

In recent times, many agencies have rolled out literacy programmes that are based on technological platforms. These programmes have provided a new dimension to the literacy initiatives. The Development Alternatives Group has a literacy programme called ‘TARA Akshar⁺’. This programme uses advanced learning, memory techniques and modern information technology to teach a person how to read a newspaper/book, write a letter and do simple calculations with up to 2-digit numbers. This is all done in two months of classroom learning, with a daily class of about two hours.