‘Eureka!’ for Dr Brij Kothari. A moment like this happened in 1996 while watching a Spanish film. The 58-year-old educational social entrepreneur wondered how Hindi subtitles in even Bollywood films would benefit literacy in India.
Thus BIRD, or the Billion Readers Initiative, was conceived.
Soon after this incident, Dr. Kothari joined the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) and embarked on deep research into the idea of monolingual subtitling, a term he had coined. SLS, he explains, is subtitling audio-visual content in the same ‘correct’ language as audio. He reads what he hears.
“The idea behind BIRD is that SLS of content on mainstream television and streaming platforms will boost reading literacy to the one billion Indians who have access to television,” explains Dr Kothari, who currently Serving as Assistant Professor at IIMA.
BIRD, in collaboration with IIMA and Dr Kothari’s non-profit Planetarium, was recently awarded a prestigious ‘Systems Change’ grant from the global philanthropic collaborative Co-Impact. It was one of 34 initiatives across Africa, Asia and South America that were awarded grants to help make systems more equitable and inclusive.
After receiving the grant, former director of IIMA, Prof. Errol D’Souza, said, “Our institute has nurtured SLS innovation since its inception and in the next five years, we aim to scale it up nationally in partnership with government, private sector. sector, civil society and other organizations.
Background
Although India has a literacy rate of about 80 percent, studies have found that more than half of the “literates” cannot read simple texts, much less newspapers. ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) has found that half of the rural children of Class 5 fail to read Class 2 lessons every year.
“This is a serious problem and has many reasons. When a child joins a school, the home language may be different from the school language. The quality of education in school leaves a lot to be desired,” explains Dr Kothari.
He further says, “The problem of Avant Vidyalaya is another problem. Out of 200 days of schooling, children in rural areas can attend only 100-125 days. Many children drop out of school in class 5 and many more in class 8. Then there is no opportunity for them to practice continuous reading, as they have less exposure to print material. Poor readers also read less, adding to the problem. ”
The premise behind the BIRD initiative is that the average Indian will watch about four hours of TV every day by the age of 70. If the TV content has SLS, when the TV is automatically switched on, the read switch is turned on. India has 600 million poor readers, 250 million non-readers. The primary target of the BIRD initiative is vulnerable readers.
‘Amazing Effect’
BIRD is building a strong alliance of partners in central and state governments, speech-to-text experts at leading technology institutes such as IIT-Madras and MIT Open Learning, and leading civil society organizations. Once state governments come on board, the BIRD team plans to talk directly to major TV networks, streaming platforms and content producers.
The initiative is also set to develop AI-powered technology to automatically subtitle content in over 12 Indian languages with a minimum accuracy of 85%. As a result, BIRD will soon apply SLS to 1,000 hours of entertainment content per language in 12 languages.
BIRD claims to be the first worldwide to offer the use of SLS in mainstream TV entertainment for mass reading literacy. Other countries have taken advantage of SLS, or ‘captioning’ as they call it, for media access and language learning among the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH).
Dr Kothari commented, “There have been many studies on SLS and language learning, but few on its relation to reading literacy. Pilot studies in the US and New Zealand cite our work on reading literacy. This invention is a child of India! ”
The number of targeted beneficiaries makes the BIRD initiative one of the largest reading literacy interventions in the world. Prominent figures including Bill Clinton have hailed the SLS as “a small thing that has an amazing impact on people’s lives.”
There are two factors that make SLS a viable solution for improving reading skills. First, content with SLS will be the viewer’s choice. Secondly, the activity of watching and reading does not require more time and effort as it happens automatically while watching television.
“We have combined three elements – television content, subtitles and people’s passion for content. Passion Plus SLS is the solution,” says Dr Kothari.
In India, SLS is available on TV entertainment in English but not systematically available in any Indian language. BIRD aims to change this for media access among three key national goals – reading literacy, Indian language learning, and DHH. There is compelling evidence in support of SLS for all three goals.
Evidence of effectiveness
Several eye tracking and impact studies have found that the presence of SLS in popular entertainment content leads to automatic reading practice. In fact, study results reveal that 90 percent of poor readers who receive SLS exposure will attempt reading with SLS, intermittently and substantially to improve their reading skills.
Dr Kothari says, “We studied children from classes 1 to 5 in government schools in Rajasthan. We showed them videos with and without subtitles.”
“We noticed that previously, eye movements were split between pictures and subtitles. Constant onscreen associations between sounds and text activated and strengthened brain pathways that helped pick up reading skills. Basically, anyone who wants to learn to read looks for text to read—whether on billboards or billboards.” , in shop signs or in comics. It’s like a game. That game is active in the case of SLS,” explains Dr Kothari.
Rangoli, a musical TV series aired on Doordarshan every Sunday, was also studied for five years. It was found that one hour of exposure to television content with SLS every Sunday improved reading skills. The effect was strongest among children in grades 1-3, who were able to automatically match the lyrics to the lyrics.
An important win
Policy making on SLS has not been easy, despite strong evidence that it works. It took 15 years from simple innovation concept to policy formulation.
In September 2019, SLS became part of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) accessibility criteria under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Half of the entertainment content on TV is essential in every language, state and channel. Take the SLS by 2025. To begin with, all major TV channels, numbering around 900, are required to caption at least one program per week.
‘IIMA has been involved in the initiative since the research was being conducted. Policy makers do not readily accept social innovations. Because of its reputation, IIMA facilitated engagement with policy makers,” says Dr Kothari.
Although broadcasting is a central issue, the state governments should talk to the TV channels about implementation in different languages. The current challenge is quality implementation. It is encouraging to see that many TV channels including Star Plus, Star Utsav, Zee TV, Zee Anmol, Sony Set, Sony Sub, Colors TV, Surya TV and many other regional channels have started implementing MIB’s accessibility standards. adds
Focus on girls and women
BIRD is intensely focused on impacting the reading skills of girls and women, especially from rural and vulnerable communities. More than 60 percent of India’s non-readers and poor readers are women. The priority is to add SLS to the entertainment content they watch with passion. A fluently literate female population, the BIRD team believes, will unlock unimaginable possibilities of dignity, skills and empowerment.
It is important that interventions aimed at improving reading literacy among women do not interfere with their daily lives. SLS will provide convenient and affordable reading practice for women where gender norms pose barriers.
“Girls get fewer years of education, print exposure and reading practice. Many girls drop out of school early because there is no high school in their village. Even while studying at school, they are drawn to household work. SLS gives them the opportunity to study at home while watching television, says Dr Kothari.
With the co-impact grant, BIRD’s ambitious mission is now to scale SLS across TV and streaming platforms in all Indian languages.
“Our goal is that one billion people will read for a few hours every day and for life. I’m not saying it’s weird. This seems like an impossible task, but we are tackling it in a novel way. We look at what content interests and engages people and provide SLS for that content. For example, 75 percent of television viewing is entertainment content – movies, serials and shows based on songs. For children, it’s cartoons. For them, we integrate reading through SLS with watching cartoons,” says Dr Kothari.
What do the beneficiaries say?
A small survey was conducted to assess how audiences liked the SLS during the early years of the project. About 2,000 postcards received from the audience (80 percent from rural areas) were analyzed as responses to Chitrageet. This initiative was found to be liked by 701 respondents. 131 felt it improved reading ability, 52 felt it had a positive effect on writing ability and 20 on pronunciation.
Jayanthi Dafda of Amreli said that she taught many people in her neighborhood to read and write while watching Chitrageet with SLS. Now, they can also sign documents and no need for fingerprints, he wrote on the postcard.
The BIRD team has conducted a survey in Bihar and is talking to schools to find a good balance between what the school system wants to offer and what the children want to see. Apart from cartoons, there are also good children’s films made by Children’s Film Society, India and NFDC, which Dr. Kothari believes will interest children.
What is the top challenge facing the BIRD initiative today? “We have estimated that an amount of around Rs 163 crore will be required for five years to scale up the initiative at the national level. Co-impact grants will be of great help. We are willing to match state government grants with those funds. Govt. It is a challenge to implement the initiative in partnership with us and other organizations,” he says.
Dr Kothari writes in an article about a quote from Leonardo da Vinci – “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” He says the BIRD initiative at IIM-A draws its inspiration from this thinking.
Edited by Divya Sethu; Photos: Byrd, Dr Brij Kothari