International Literacy day: 10 facts to know about Indian Literacy

FACTS | September 8, 2018:

On November 7, the International Literacy Day was decided by the UNESCO in the year 1965. The day was first celebrated in the year 1966 in September.

According to the data collected by UNESCO around 84 per cent of the world's population is literate. As of today, 250 million children around the world cannot read or write well. Almost three-quarters of the world's 775 million illiterate adults are found in ten countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

According to UNESCO's 'Global Monitoring Report on Education for All Countries' report Burkina Faso (12.8 per cent), Niger (14.4 per cent) and Mali (19 per cent) have the lowest literacy rate. The theme of International Literacy Day 2015 is Literacy and Sustainable Societies. According to the United Nations analysis, one in five adults is illiterate; 75 million children don't attend school and many more attend irregularly or are dropouts.

Here are a few facts that you must know

1. India is home of the largest population of illiterate adults in the world – 287 million, amounting to 37% of the global total.

2. 47.78 % of school children are girls. In the next census, they will be calculated as illiterate women, which would then have a ripple effect on the education of their children.

3. Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are amongst the bottom five states in terms of literacy of Dalits.

4. India's literacy rate has increased six times since the end of the British rule — from 12% to 74% in 2011, yet, India has the world's largest population of illiterates.

5. The literacy rate of female Dalits in Bihar is 38.5% in 2011.  It is far behind India's progress trend. It is still 30 years behind India's national literacy Rate which was 43.7 in 1981.

6. 60 lakh children in India are still out-of-school

7. 92% of government schools are yet to fully implement the RTE Act.

8. India is ranked 123rd out of 135 countries in female literacy rate.

9. In the South Asian region, India ranks fourth, behind Sri Lanka with a female-male ratio of 0.97 and Bangladesh with a female-male ratio of 0.85.

10. The percentage of women to the total number of school teachers has gone up from 29.3% in 1991 to 47.16% in 2013-14.

Source: OXFAM