Solving Illiteracy Problem in India using Lean Six Sigma Approach

According to the 2011 Census, any person above the age of 7 and has the ability to read and
write is said to be literate. In India, the average literacy rate stands at 74.04%. Kerala has the
highest literacy rate at 93.91% and Bihar has the lowest at 63.82%. This is a huge gap in terms
of the distribution of the literacy rate among states in India. Also on looking at gender wise
literacy rate, the female literacy rate is only at 65.5%. Even though this does not look great,
there has been a significant improvement over the 2001 Census measurement of 53.7%.
Though the overall literacy rate of India stands at 74%, India still has the highest number of
illiterate population in the world. All the data points mentioned above show how big a problem
India has in terms of illiteracy. If effective measures are not taken immediately, this will lead to a
bigger problem as India also has a fast growing population as well.
Illiteracy leads to multiple
problems. Firstly, illiteracy might
not allow a person to join a skilled
labor. The person may work as an
unskilled or a temporary labor. In
addition, illiteracy affects the
family and the future generation.
The children of illiterate parents
might not get the same exposure
or the awareness during their
education in school. In addition, this becomes a vicious cycle affecting the socio-economic
development of India.
The Lean Six Sigma is an approach that uses a set of techniques
to improve processes by attempting to reduce the probability of
mistakes or errors that occur. If we are to consider the Illiteracy
Problem of India, the education system could be the ‘Process’
and the Illiteracy Rate could be the ‘Error’ or the ‘Mistake’. The
Lean Six Sigma approach could be used to try to reduce the
Illiteracy Rate (which is our error in the process here).
The LSS approach uses an ordered set of techniques to
approach any problem – Defining the Problem, Problem
Observation, Analyzing the problem, Taking actions, Checking
after taking the actions, Standardized the improved proves and
then Conclude. This approach is also called as ‘DMAIC’ or (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-
Control). One of the most important steps in this approach is to arrive at the Root Cause or the
set of Root Causes. This will help tackle what is causing the problem (Illiteracy in our case).
The first step would be to collect all data sources related to this problem. The data collection
should clearly mention the source of the data, how it is collected and what it contains. This
collected data should next be used to Observe. Observe patterns in the data or try to derive
meaningful insights like those that had been mentioned in the first paragraph of this article.
Understand the state wise literacy rates or the literacy rate to population ratio and other metrics
of importance. After doing these, we analyze the data – we could use the Fish Bone diagram to
understand the multiple causes that are behind the high Illiteracy Rate in India. Once we find the
causes, we use the data to validate these causes. For example, there is already proven data to
show that Poverty in India plays a big role in the Illiteracy Rate. India is home to one-third of all
world poverty. Nearly 22% of Indians fall below the poverty line. India has also implemented the
Right to Education Act, which has not been yet completely and effectively implemented.
On thinking about this Root-Cause Analysis for a moment could give us multiple answers. There
are many obvious answers right in front of us. Again we should deep dive into each one of them
to completely eradicate them. India is a huge country – in terms of population and land size.
There are a million types of people who fall into different buckets of social and economic
divisions. There could be disparities in economic conditions or discrimination by caste or
gender. Above all, there could be a backlog in terms of technological advancements in many
parts of the country.
Taking into account all these root causes, we must prepare actions that need to be taken to
address them effectively. India is a huge country in terms of population and the scale of
implementation will be quite big as well. But even a small step now could lead to significant
improvements in the near future. Some of the actions that need to be taken are:
1. Increase the age of study under the Right to Education Act from 6-14 to 6-18. This could
see a sharp decline in the number of dropouts we see after the age of 14.
2. We must start investing and developing Government Schools across India. This will also
bring in quality education that not only teaches the students basics but also specializes
in a few topics.
3. The skill set taught at schools should be expanded – the basic skills that are currently
taught could be widened to teach specific skill sets like plumbing, carpentry, gardening,
nursing, stitching etc. This will have a great effect in the students employment after their
education is over.
4. Another huge cause of illiteracy is also the absence of quality teachers across India.
Therefore, it is important to train teachers, place them across geographies, constantly
monitor and train them.
5. Bringing about a cultural change will be the final step. This will remove all socio-
economic barriers that are existent. This is easier said than done, but efforts should be
taken to implement this as this will play a huge role in the development of this nation.
Once all these actions are implemented, the Lean Six Sigma approach also includes
‘Controlling’ these actions – You ‘Check’ and make sure that there is a significant improvement
and ‘Standardize’ the actions that you have implemented so that they do not remain one-time
actions but are continuously followed. This should include placing constant updation and
monitoring of the syllabus, the teachers and the education policies. The Lean Six Sigma
approach to tackle this problem of illiteracy will be super effective only if all these are a
collective effort of the society as a whole.

Adhithia Ramakrishnan
adhithia@gmail.com