Kerala Most Literate State; Andhra Pradesh Worst Performer: NSO Survey

• 08 Sep 2020

The report on ‘Household Social Consumption: Education in India’ as part of 75th round of National Sample Survey – from July 2017 to June 2018’ provides for state-wise detail of literacy rate among the persons aged seven years and above.

There has often been a conjecture around South Indian states being more literate than the North, however, the latest data debunked that.

The report shows the southern state of Andhra Pradesh as the worst among all states in India in terms of literacy rate, even behind Bihar’s 70.9%. While Andhra’s literacy rate is at 66.4%, Telangana’s is 72.8%, which worse than the national average of 77.7% and Karnataka’s is 77.2%.

Findings

Best Performers

• With 96.2 per cent literacy, Kerala has once again emerged as the most literate state in the country.
• After Kerala, Delhi has the best literacy rate at 88.7 per cent, followed by Uttarkhand(87.6 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (86.6 per cent) and Assam at 85.9 per cent.

Worst Performers

• Andhra Pradesh featured at the bottom with a rate of 66.4 per cent.
• Rajasthan is the second worst performer with literacy rate at 69.7 per cent, followed by Bihar at 70.9 per cent, Telangana at 72.8 per cent, Uttar Pradesh at 73 per cent and Madhya Pradesh at 73.7 per cent.

Overall Literacy Rate

• The study has pegged the overall literacy rate in the country at about 77.7 per cent.
• In rural areas, the literacy rate is 73.5 per cent
• In urban areas,the literacy rate is 87.7 per cent

Gender-wise Literacy

• At all-India level, the male literacy rate is higher at 84.7 per cent compared to 70.3 per cent among women.
• The male literacy rate is higher than female literacy rate among all states. Even in the worst performing states, there was a considerable gap in male and female literacy rate.
• In Rajasthan, the gap is widest as male literacy rate stood at 80.8 per cent compared to 57.6 per cent of females.
• Bihar comes second after Rajasthan in Male to female literacy gap –where male literacy is at 79.7 per cent compared to 60.5 per cent of females.
• In Kerala, the gap between male and female literacy is the thinnest at just 2.2 percentage points.

Other Findings

Digital Divide

• In addition, the report revealed that nearly 4 per cent of rural households and 23 per cent of urban households among the sample size possessed a computer.
• Nearly 24 per cent of persons aged 15-29 in rural areas can operate a computer while the same for urban areas is 56 per cent.
• Nearly 35 per cent of persons aged between 15-29 years reported using the internet during the 30 days prior to date of the survey. In this regard, the proportion was 25 per cent in rural areas and 58 per cent in urban areas.