IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION.

The article reports on a total literacy campaign launched in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu in India. In Pudukkottai district, when the total literacy campaign was proposed to the NLMA, there was a committed core group of hardly 20 to 30 literacy activists. It was on this slender basis that the proposal dared dream of making 290,000 persons literate in a district with a population of 132 million. The support from the National Literacy Mission and clearance from the state government, with attendant financial assistance, constituted the critical minimum official backing that the campaign needed. Tens of thousands of volunteers, a majority of them poor, and over 200,000 learners, poorer still, gave freely of their time and energies to this campaign in the days and months that followed. The human generosity the campaign was able to evoke had little to do with economic variables. It had a lot to do with people's innate goodness and volunteer spirit. A key feature of Pudukkottai's literacy campaign has been the involvement of officials at all levels, right from the district down to the gram panchayat.