France: UNESCO has released a comprehensive data warehouse with a report titled ‘Putting Education to Work’. It contains education-related data like literacy rate, education finance and so on. Though the data given is for 2005-2010 and includes about 175 countries, it also extrapolates trends till 2015.
India with a population of over 120 crore has an adult literacy rate of 63%. While 75 out of 100 male adults are literate, just over half the adult women in the country know how to read and write.
Considering the time period from 1985-1994 when less than half the adult population were literate, India has sprinted forward by about 15 percentage points when it comes to adult literacy rate. The projected growth for literacy in 2010-2015 is 71%. This target may be slightly ambitious considering that the 15% growth took two decades to achieve. But an encouraging sign has been the spurt of youth literacy rate (In the age group of 15-24) - from 45% in 1985-1994 to a healthy 75% in 2005-2009.
India seems to be the median for South and West Asian countries. The highest literacy rate here has been Maldives, with nearly every citizen being literate, or just one or two illiterates for every 100. It is notable that both men and women have equal literacy rates.
The lowest literacy rate is Bhutan, with just over half the population being literates. The gender disparity when it comes to literacy is evident, as just about 4 in every 10 women are able to read and write, while about 6 in every 10 men are literate. This implies that just 2/3rd of the number of women as compared to men are literate.
On a global scale, India still lags behind the average literacy rate of 67% for developing countries, and has a long way to go compared to the developed world where virtually everyone is literate. Literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa and India are comparable, and India also fits into the average literacy rate for ‘low income group’ countries.
With central Asian countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan achieving nearly 100% literacy, it is indeed a cause for concern that India, which is supposed to be a burgeoning country is not yet up to the mark.
13 years ago
