MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(Dr. SATYA PAL SINGH)
(a) UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2019 has stated that adult literacy rate is 95 per cent and 93 per cent in Indonesia and Thailand respectively. The adult literacy rate in India is not indicated in the report. Census 2011 has reported the adult literacy rate in the country as 69.28 per cent.
(b) & (c) Plan-wise targets are fixed to achieve higher levels of literacy in a phased manner. The target was set to raise the overall literacy rate of the country to 80 per cent and reduce the gender gap to 10 percentage points by the end of XII Five Year Plan Period (2017). The literacy data in the country is collected through decennial census operation conducted by
Registrar General of India. The last Census was held in 2011. A statement indicating details of literacy rate in the country, State and gender-wise including Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh (including Bundelkhand), in the age group of 7 and above, as per Census 2011 is annexed.
(d) to (f) Various factors viz. poverty, gender and social inequities, etc. are responsible for impeding state of education in the country.
In order to ensure free and compulsory education in the age group of 6 to 14 year, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, has laid down norms and standards for opening of schools in neighbourhood. The RTE Act provides children’s access to elementary schools within the defined area or limits of neighbourhood. Section 6 of the Act provides that ‘The appropriate government and local authorities’ shall establish, with in the area or limits of a neighbourhood, a school, where it is not already established, within a period of three years from the commencement of the Act. Further, the Act places a compulsion on the State to ensure that no child from the weaker sections or disadvantaged groups is discriminated against in any manner or prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education.
In addition, the Department of School Education and Literacy has launched the Samagra Shiksha - an Integrated Scheme for School Education as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with effect from the year 2018-19. This programme subsumes the three erstwhile Centrally Sponsored Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE). Samagra Shiksha is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class XII and aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.
In order to improve the literacy rate in the country, the scheme of Saakshar Bharat was implemented in the rural areas of 410 districts in 26 States and one UT that had adult female literacy rate of 50 per cent and below as per Census 2001, and including left wing extremism affected districts, irrespective of their literacy rates, with special focus on women and other disadvantaged groups, since October 2009. The scheme was extended upto 31.03.2018.
A programme is under consideration of Govt. of India through which students will teach their parents and neighbors who may be illiterate. They will be called ‘Literate India Ambassadors’. The aim is to reach full literacy by 2025.
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