ABSTRACT
The causes of the failure or limited success of illiteracy eradication schemes before 1968 are to be found principally in the lack of an overall vision. The building-up of socialism and the practice of democracy necessitate the complete and immediate eradication of illiteracy and the mobilisation of all potentialities to fulfil this mission with immediacy and success. The period between the promulgation of the Illiteracy Eradication Law and the initiation of the national comprehensive campaign for the eradication of illiteracy in December 1978 was spent in creating the infrastructural base for eradicating illiteracy. In May 1978, the National Comprehensive Campaign for Compulsory Literacy Law was issued, making the eradication of illiteracy a national issue towards which all the country's facilities on both official and popular levels were to be oriented. The law made regular attendance at illiteracy eradication classes obligatory, and laid down punitive measures to deal with those who failed to comply with its provisions.
