NEW DELHI, 13 Mar: Bihar has the lowest literacy rate in the country, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, according to the education ministry.
The literacy rate in rural India is 67.77 percent as compared to 84.11 percent in urban India, it said.
The information was shared by union MoS for Education Annapurna Devi in response to a written question in the Lok Sabha.
“Samagra Shiksha scheme envisages the school as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels.
“The states and UTs are assisted by the central government to implement the Samagra Shiksha as a programme for providing universal access and retention, bridging the gender and social category gaps in education and enhancement of learning level of children at all levels of school education,” Devi said.
According to the data shared by the education ministry, Bihar (61.8 pc) has the lowest literacy rate, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (65.3 pc) and Rajasthan (66.1 pc).
Kerala has the highest literacy rate (94 pc), followed by Lakshadweep (91.85) and Mizoram (91.33 pc), it said.
The ministry said that ‘Saakshar Bharat’ is a centrally-sponsored scheme to improve the literacy rate among adults in the country.
It said that “the scheme was implemented in the rural areas of 404 districts in 26 states and one union territory that had adult female literacy rate of 50 percent and below as per census 2001, including left wing extremism-affected districts.”
“The target was to raise the overall literacy rate of the country to 80 percent and reduce gender gap to 10 percent point by the end of 12th five-year plan.
“The scheme was extended up to 31 March, 2018. During the implementation of the Saakshar Bharat scheme, against the overall target of making 7 crore adult non-literates as literates, around 7.64 crore learners who passed the biannual basic literacy assessment tests conducted by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) between August 2010 to March 2018, were certified as literates,” said Devi. (PTI)
