Although the Shah's regime had created a popular and successful Literacy Corps and also worked to raise literacy rates, the Islamic Republic based its educational reforms on Islamic principles. The Literacy Movement Organization (LMO), replaced the Literacy Corps following the revolution and is credited with much of Iran's continued success in reducing illiteracy from 52.5 per cent in 1976 to just 24 per cent, at the last count in 2002. The movement has established over 2,000 community learning centers across the country, employed some 55,000 instructors, distributed 300 easy-to-read books and manuals, and provided literacy classes to a million people, men as well as women. The increase in literacy "meant that for the first time in history most of the population, including Azeris, Kurds, Gilakis, and Moazanderanis, could converse and read in Persian."