Mobile School for Sundel selling Children at Marina Beach by Chennai Corporation scheme Education for all Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Photo S. Thanthoni

The Hindu: India still has the largest number of illiterate adults in the world, but has made “rapid advances” in cutting down the numbers of school drop outs, a new UN report on education has said.

The Education For All-Global Monitoring Report, released here on Wednesday finds that out of the total 759 million illiterate adults in the world, India still has the highest number.

“Over half of the illiterate adults live in just four countries: Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan,” the report said, adding the progress has been “painfully slow” and threatens to obstruct the Millennium Development Goals.

It said about 72 million primary school age children and another 71 million adolescents are not at school, and on current trends, 56 million primary school age children will still be out of school in 2015, it said.

UNESCO’s top official Irina Bokova said the world body was apprehensive that the financial crisis would cause governments to scale back funding on education.

“With the world’s largest illiterate population, India has been making progress,” the report said.

While in 1985 -1994 just about half of the adults in the country were literate, now the number has gone up to two-thirds. “Since the adult population increased by 45 per cent, this marks a real advance,” it said.

Gender disparities remain deeply engrained, with 28 nations across the developing world having nine or fewer girls in school for every 10 boys.

The report said two-thirds of the total illiterate people are women.
On a positive note, it says that out-of-school numbers have fallen “driven by rapid advances in India”. In the three years to 2007, out-of-school population fell by 8 million.

“Much of the decline took place in India, which reported a fall of almost 15 million in out-of-school numbers in the two years after the 2001 launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (universal primary education) programme,” the report said.

It finds that with the exception of China, progress towards halving illiteracy has been “painfully slow,” which will make meeting MDG targets difficult.

“On current trends, the world will be less than halfway towards this goal by 2015. India alone will have a shortfall of some 81 million literate people,” it said.

Ms. Bokova, Executive Director of the UN body for education, warned that the present financial crisis would cause parents and governments to scale back on educating their children.

The Education For All Monitoring Global Report comes out in the backdrop of a financial crisis that is driving millions into extreme poverty. “In short it would create a lost generation… a tremendous cost to society,” she added.

“It could force governments to cut their spending on education and parents to pull their children out of school or simply not to send them,” Ms. Bokova said, at the launch of the report here at the UN headquarters.

The report also finds that low-income countries provide poor quality education and caste system obstructs education in South Asia.

Article from The Hindu | Link

Meanwhile, the absolute number of illiterate people in the population is steadily rising year after year. At about 50 crore (500 million), the number of illiterates in today’s India is larger than the total population of the country 30 years ago.

Even in the younger age groups, illiteracy remains endemic. About half of all adolescent girls, for instance, are unable to read and write.

The low priority given to education by this nation is apparent from the mean years of schooling, the average period spent in school by a citizen. Indians spend a little over two years in the classroom. The Chinese spend five, the Sri Lankans over seven and the South Koreans nine.

That so many children are out of school is a profound tragedy. Education is a basic tool for self-defence in modern society. The feeling of powerlessness that goes with being illiterate comes through loud and clear in any conversation with ordinary people. As Shankar Lal of Gadaula village in Banda, Uttar Pradesh, put it, “Anpadh aadmee jeevanbhar kasht mein rahta hai (An illiterate person is handicapped all his life).”

Lal was one among 1,221 Indian parents who were interviewed in a recent survey planned by a group of researchers based at the Delhi School of Economics and the Indian Social Institute. The survey covered all the schooling facilities in a randomly selected sample of 188 villages in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The survey’s findings will be released soon as part of the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE).

The probe findings provide a startling picture of the schooling situation in India’s villages. To begin with, they shatter two myths that are often invoked to “explain” the slow progress of elementary education: one, a supposed lack of parental motivation; two, that work keeps children from going to school. The survey gives an eye-opening account of the appalling condition of elementary education in rural India — and of the government’s apathy. It makes it clear that the battle against ignorance is a grim one.

INDIA TODAY presents an exclusive preview of the PROBE findings. | Link