Mushtaq Ahmed Azmi

 Mushtaq Ahmed Azmi was a mass literacy expert. 

He was one of the first non-officials to be associated with the development of Adult Education program in India from the early 1950s, and was an early leader of the mass literacy movement. As an officer of UNESCO, he was posted in Africa and seconded to lead mass literacy programs in Nigeria and Zambia. He was offered a position in the UNESCO by the British diplomat and head of fundamental education at UNESCO John Bowers.

Mushtaq Ahmed Azmi was born in the village of Rajapur Sikror, Saraimeer Azamgarh district, Uttar Pradesh. Thus, the suffix Azmi. He later dropped the suffix citing his leaving the place at the tender age of seven. His early education was in Burma under his paternal uncle. After the separation of Burma from India in 1935, he returned to India and enrolled at Jubilee College in Lucknow, UP.

He graduated first class with a bachelor of arts in history from Aligarh Muslim University in 1942.

During his sixty-year career, he conducted a number of studies and wrote books and technical documents, which are used by experts and activists in the field of adult education. He developed control, monitoring and evaluation systems for national literacy programs such as Total Literacy Campaigns (TLC) and Post Literacy Programs (PLP), and was an advocate of lifelong learning.

He died on July 12, 2011.