Literacy: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
Contents[hide] |
Statistics, state-wise
Kerala
The Hindu, November 9, 2016
Move to educate migrant workers in most literate State
Kerala government will teach them to read and write in Hindi and Malayalam, besides creating legal awareness.
The sense of alienation that migrant workers in Kerala feel will come down substantively if the efforts of the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA) prove a success.
The KSLMA is all set to launch a social literacy drive to integrate migrant labourers into Kerala society, by imparting reading and writing skills to them and to orient them to the culture of the State. A large majority of the 25 lakh migrant labourers in the State, many of whom hail from North India, are illiterate even in their mother tongue, according to KSLMA. As a result, they are ignorant in legal, health and environmental matters, resulting in poor quality of living as well as exploitation by their employers. This leads to gaps in their social relations with the locals.
"Our effort is to give them minimum language skill so that they are able to interact better with their hosts," says KSLMA director P.S. Sreekala. The workers, who contribute heavily to the State's development, were being “ostracised.” The literacy programme aimed at solving this issue by teaching them to read and write in Malayalam as well as Hindi, apart from introducing them to the social and cultural features of the State, and creating legal and health-related awareness, she said.
KSLMA is initiating three other programmes this year, including a continuing education mission for members of the trans-gender community, an environmental literacy mission and a functional literacy drive, aimed at the coastal areas of Kasaragod, Malappuram and Thiruvananthapuram.
Statistics, year-wise
Literacy in 2006
India has 37% of world's illiterate adults
IANS| Jan 29, 2014
India has by far the largest population of illiterate adults — 287 million or 37 per cent of the global total, according to the "EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2013-14: Teaching and Learning: Achieving quality for All." Commissioned by Unesco, it said that 10 countries (including India) account for 557 million or 72 per cent of the global population of illiterate adults.
"India's literacy rate rose from 48 per cent in 1991 to 63 per cent in 2006, (the latest year for which data was available), but population growth cancelled the gains. So there was no change in the number of illiterate adults," the report said.
Though India has more than 99 per cent children in schools because of the Right to Education Act, the quality of education being imparted is a big challenge that should be addressed, a top Unesco officer said.
The report also said that a global learning crisis was costing governments $129 billion a year, and that 10 per cent of global spending on primary education was being lost on poor quality education that was failing to ensure that children learn.
"It leaves one in four young people in poor countries unable to read a single sentence, affecting one-third of young women in South and West Asia," it said.
The countries include Bhutan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
2011: Literacy rate 74.4%
The Times of India, January 28, 2016
Chethan Kumar Literacy rate up, but so is illiteracy
Population Rising But Enrolment Not Keeping Pace
The overall literacy rate in the country may have gone up to 74.4%, but the drop in the illiteracy rate has not matched the increase in population. Between 2001 and 2011, the population above the age of 7 grew by 18.65 crore but the decrease in the number of illiterates is just 3.11 crore.
A 2015 Unesco report said that in terms of absolute numbers, India -with 28.7 crore illiterates -was the country with the largest number of adults without basic literacy skills in 2010-11 compared to 2000-01 when it had 30.4 crore illiterates. The fact that illiteracy is not being tackled is evident from the enrolment rates in primary and upper primary schools. Over 12 years (2000-01 to 2013-14), the number of children who enrolled in primary schools increased by just 1.86 crore, and at the upper primary level by just over 2 crore.The population during this period, however, increased by more than 18 crore.
“Over the past few years, there has been a dip in the enrolment rate across the country compared to the growth in population,“ says A S Seetharamu, a former professor of the Institute of Social and Economic Change.
Going by 2011 Census data, most states, barring a few like Nagaland, have recorded an increase in population but the enrolment rate does not mirror that. The country also seems to be having a problem with retaining people in schools and colleges. An average of 326 out of 1,000 students in rural areas are dropping out, while the same is 383 per 1,000 in urban areas, the National Sample Survey Organisation's (NSSO) last survey reveals. This data counts people up to the age of 29.
UNESCO has put the number of out-of-school (OOS) children at 17 lakh in India.A survey commissioned by the Centre put the number for 2014 at 61lakh, with SC and ST children making up 49.03% (29.73 lakh) of these.
2011: the most and least literate states
See graphic. : Literary rate, 2011, Bihar and Kerala and other states having highest and lowest adult literacy, respectively, 2011
Statistics, India and the world
2015: India 2nd most `ignorant' among 33 nations
The Times of India, Dec 07 2015
India 2nd most `ignorant' nation, Mexico 1st: Study
India has the dubious honour of being the second most ignorant nation in the world after Mexico, according to a survey which posed questions on issues like inequality , non-religious population, female employment and internet access. The survey conducted by Ipsos MORI, a London-based market research firm, polled 25,000 people from 33 countries and found that while people “overestimate what we worry about“, a lot of major issues are underestimated.
“Mexico and India receive the dubious honour of being the most inaccurate in their perceptions on these issues, while South Koreans are the most accurate, followed by the Irish,“ the survey said.
The rankings of the nations were based on the “index of ignorance“ which was determined by questions about wealth that the top 1% own, obesity , non-religious population, immigration, living with parents, female employment, rural living and internet access.
Most Indians “underestimate“ how much of the country's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top 1%, the survey said, adding that the top 1% actually own an “incredible“ 70% of all wealth.
The survey also found that most Indians “hugely overestimate“ the proportions of non-religious people in the country to be 33% when the true figure is under 1%.
While Israel significantly underestimates the proportion of female employment (by 29 percentage points), people in countries like India, Mexico, South Africa and Chile all think of more women in work than really are, it said.India fell in the list of nations which overestimate representation by women in politics.
Countries like Columbia, Russia, India and Brazil all think there is better female representation than there really is, the survey said.
However, the Indian population seriously underestimates the rural population of the country and thinks more people have internet access than in reality .
In India, the average guess among online respondents for internet access is 60% -an overestimation of the true picture of 41 percentage points, the survey added.
