The objectives of study were: (1) To compare the approaches to adult education of a voluntary agency and government both as process and impact. (2) To study the extent and incidence of literacy, functionality and social awareness achieved by the learners in both programs. (3) To find out the extent to which caste acts as a barrier to the implementation of Adult Education Program (AEP) and the impact of adult education on caste. 

The sample comprised of 120 and 144 (total 264) learners from voluntary agency village and government village respectively. The age group was 15-45 years.

The data was collected from primary and secondary sources. Tools were structured interview schedules, group interviews/discussions, reports etc.

It was mainly a descriptive and comparative study.Two villages were selected from two adjacent Mandals in one revenue division of Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh.

The statistical techniques used for data collection were: percentages, Chi-square test, t- test and zero order correlation. 

The findings of study were: (1) In terms of village profiles, the two villages are similar in many respects. (2) As regards the process of Adult Education Program, the voluntary agency AEP had a more organized and longer training program than the government one. (3) The government program conducted a proper and detailed survey to identify the illiterate in the villages. Voluntary agency seemed to have not done so. (4) Both the villages had environment, building and motivational programs before and during the teaching learning process, giving special attention to women. (5) In terms of rapport building, the voluntary agency was better than government. (6) Teaching-learning process of voluntary agency Adult Education Program gave greater importance to functionality and social awareness than literacy and government Adult Education Program concentrated on imparting literacy. Adult Education Program of voluntary agency had more suitable instructions than that of the government. Voluntarism and people’s participation was more visible in voluntary agency college than in the government college. On the whole, the teaching-learning process of voluntary agency Adult Education Program was found to be better than that of the government. (7) Government maintained records more systematically than voluntary agency. (8) In both the villages, to a certain extent, caste appeared to have been a barrier in the implementation of Adult Education Program. (9) The percentage of female learners was more than that of males in both the villages. There were more younger people taking part in Adult Education Program of government than that of voluntary agency. (10) There was a significant difference between the two villages as far as caste composition of learners was concerned. (11) Adult education program in both the villages seemed to have catered to the less privileged illiterate masses. (12) The achievement of literacy was generally poor in both the villages. However, government village learner achieved it significantly better than voluntary agency village learners. (13) In government village male did better than female. (14) Age made a significant difference in voluntary agency village. (15) Voluntary agency Adult Education Program succeeded substantially and significantly more than government Adult Education Program towards achievement of functionality and social awareness at cognitive level by learners. (16) Government village learners applied literacy in their day to day life comparatively more than voluntary agency village learners. (17) Voluntary agency village learners applied the functionality and social awareness in their lives comparatively and significantly more than government village learners. (18) Adult Education Program of voluntary agency greatly helped the learners to take part in social action programs. This was not the case with the government programs. (19) Impact of voluntary agency Adult Education Program on caste was comparatively more that of government.