India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Spending

[grey boy 2]

The post is a little exaggeration of the current state in India But the problem is true but nothing to worry all the necessary things have been done to improve it.

Indian literacy rate grew to 66% in 2007 from 12% at the end of British rule in 1947.this is greater than fivefold improvement,But the level is well below the world average literacy rate of 84%.

Unicef Study Predicts 16% World Illiteracy Rate Will Increase - NYTimes.com



as this graph suggests things are improving & can be seen.

Kerala is the most literate state in India, with 90.86% literacy, followed closely by Mizoram at 88.80%. Bihar is the least literate state in India with 47% literacy.

The right to education is a fundamental human right, that means free primary education to all in India.

Government schemes

1.National Literacy Mission

The National Literacy Mission, launched in 1988, aimed at attaining a literacy rate of 75 per cent by 2007.

2.Sarva Siksha Abhiyan

The Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (Hindi for Total Literacy Campaign) was launched in 2001 to ensure that all children in the 6–14 year age-group attend school and complete eight years of schooling by 2010.
The centrally sponsored District Primary Education Programme, launched in 1994, had opened more than 160,000 new schools by 2005, including almost 84,000 alternative schools.

now those are huge numbers

3. Mid-day Meal Scheme

One of the most popular schemes adopted to attract children to schools is the Mid-day Meal Scheme, launched in 1995.

Of the estimated 205 million child population in the age group 6–14 years on March 1, 2002, nearly 82.5% were enrolled in schools.



Hope this ends the discussion

Buddy, whats the point of your "link" dated back to 1998 ?

Its only said Unicef Study Predicts 16% World Illiteracy Rate Will

Increase

Its had nothing to do with the rest of your post, where are the source

of your data ?

 

[BlackSonic]

StateMaster - Encyclopedia: List of countries by literacy rate

Rank Country Literacy rate
1 Georgia 100.0[1]
1 Finland 100.0[2]
1 Luxembourg 100.0[3]
1 Norway 100.0[4]
5 United States of America 99.9 [5]
6 Cuba 99.8 [2]
6 Estonia 99.8
7 Barbados 99.7
7 Latvia 99.7
7 Poland 99.7
7 Slovenia 99.7
11 Belarus 99.6
11 Lithuania 99.6
11 Slovakia 99.6
14 Kazakhstan 99.5
14 Tajikistan 99.5
16 Armenia 99.4
16 Russian Federation 99.4
16 Ukraine 99.4
19 Hungary 99.3
20 Uzbekistan 99.3
21 Switzerland 99.0
21 Sweden 99.0
21 New Zealand 99.0
21 Netherlands 99.0
21 Japan 99.0
21 Ireland (Republic of) 99.0
21 Iceland 99.0
21 Denmark 99.0
21 Germany 99.0
21 France 99.0
21 Czech Republic 99.0
21 Belgium 99.0
21 Canada 99.0
21 Australia 99.0[6]
35 Tonga 98.9
36 Azerbaijan 98.8
36 Turkmenistan 98.8
38 Albania 98.7
38 Kyrgyzstan 98.7
38 Samoa 98.7
41 Trinidad and Tobago 98.6
42 Italy 98.5
43 Romania 98.4 [3]
44 Bulgaria 98.2
45 Croatia 98.1
46 Austria 98.0
47 South Korea 97.9
48 Mongolia 97.8
48 Greece 97.8
50 Spain 97.7
50 Uruguay 97.7
52 Argentina 97.5
53 Maldives 97.2
54 Israel 96.9
55 Cyprus 96.8
56 Guyana 96.5
57 Montenegro 96.4[7]
58 Moldova 96.2
59 Republic of Macedonia 96.1
59 Taiwan 96.1
61 Grenada 96.0
62 Costa Rica 95.8
63 Chile 95.7
64 Bahamas 95.5
65 Bosnia and Herzegovina 94.6
66 Colombia 94.2
67 Hong Kong S.A.R. of the People's Republic of China 93.5
68 Venezuela 93.0
69 Fiji 92.9
70 Brunei 92.7
71 Philippines 92.6
71 Thailand 92.6
73 Malta 92.5
73 Portugal 92.5
73 Singapore 92.5
76 Palestinian territories 91.9
76 Panama 91.9
76 Seychelles 91.9
79 Paraguay 91.6
80 Ecuador 91.0
81 People's Republic of China (mainland only) 90.9
82 Sri Lanka 90.4
83 Mexico 90.3
83 Vietnam 90.3
85 Saint Lucia 90.1
86 Zimbabwe 90.0
87 Jordan 89.9
88 Myanmar 89.7
89 Qatar 89.2
90 Malaysia 88.7
91 Brazil 88.4
92 Turkey 88.3
93 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 88.1
94 Dominica 88.0
94 Suriname 88.0
96 Indonesia 87.9
97 Bahrain 87.7
97 Dominican Republic 87.7
97 Peru 87.7
100 Jamaica 87.6
93 Bolivia 86.5
93 Lebanon 86.5
94 Antigua and Barbuda 85.8
95 Namibia 85.0
96 Mauritius 84.3
97 Equatorial Guinea 84.2
98 São Tomé and Principe 83.1
99 Kuwait 82.9
99 Syria 82.9
100 Congo 82.8
110 South Africa 82.4
111 Libya 81.7
112 Lesotho 81.4
113 Iran 80.0
113 Honduras 80.0
115 El Salvador 79.7
116 Saudi Arabia 79.4
117 Swaziland 79.2
118 Botswana 78.9
118 Tanzania 78.2
119 United Arab Emirates 77.3
120 Belize 76.9
121 Nicaragua 76.7
122 Solomon Islands 76.6
123 Cape Verde 75.7
124 Oman 74.4
125 Tunisia 74.3
126 Vanuatu 74.0
127 Cambodia 73.6
127 Kenya 73.6
129 Gabon 71.0
130 Madagascar 70.6
131 Algeria 69.8
133 Guatemala 69.1
134 Uganda 68.9
135 Laos 68.7
136 Cameroon 67.9
136 Zambia 67.9
138 Angola 66.8
138 Nigeria 66.8
140 Djibouti 65.5
141 Democratic Republic of Congo 65.3
142 Malawi 64.1
143 Rwanda 64.0
144 Morocco 61.6 [4]
145 India 61.0
146 Sudan 59.0
147 Burundi 58.9
148 Timor-Leste 58.6
149 Papua New Guinea 57.3
150 Eritrea 56.7
151 Comoros 56.2
152 Egypt 55.6
153 Pakistan 54.2
154 Ghana 54.1
155 Togo 53.0
156 Haiti 51.9
157 Mauritania 51.2
158 Yemen 49.0
159 Central African Republic 48.6
160 Nepal 48.6
161 Côte d’Ivoire 48.1
162 Bhutan 47.0
163 Mozambique 46.5
164 Ethiopia 41.5
165 Bangladesh 41.1
166 Guinea 41.0
167 Guinea-Bissau 39.6
168 Senegal 39.3
169 Gambia 37.8
170 Afghanistan 36.0
171 Benin 33.6
172 Sierra Leone 29.6
173 Chad 25.5
174 Mali 19.0
175 Niger 14.4
176 Burkina Faso 12.8

This topic is about India.
Please do not drag other 175 countries in this.

 

[grey boy 2]

This topic is about India.
Please do not drag other 175 countries in this.

IGNORED

 

[BlackSonic]

IGNORED

Please don't go offtopic.

 

[Insane]

Yes India has lot of illiterates. Like someone pointed out the illiterate percent is about 34%..

Let me play around the data a bit.

Percentage under 15 = 30% approx
Percentage 15-35 = 35% approx
Percentage 35-50 = 19% approx
Above 50 = 16% approx

# Now The people who are 35 and above left their schooling years behind like 20 years ago which would be 1990.

# The people who are 50 and above left their schooling years behind like 35 years ago which would be 1975.

# Considering that about 16% of the population of the country are 50 years and above currently, i would not be surprised if a good 70 % of them are illiterate because the literacy rate prevalent in the country during the 1970's was around 35% of which many a literate folks would have passed away. So in final calculations 70% of 16% is little more than 11% of the entire current population.

# Considering people in the 35-50 years current range - They represent 19% of the population and 50% of the would be illiterate taking the literacy rate of early 1990's. This translates to roughly 10% of the current population.

# So The above figures tell me out of the illiterate percentage among adult - a very good 21% of the entire population are above 35 years of age and about 13% of the illiterates are below the age of 35.

# 13% of illiterate of entire population would translate to 20% of the under 35 age population meaning 80% of the population under 35 is literate.

# 21% of the entire population would translate to a staggering 60% illiteracy rate among people aged over 35. ( I would say it would be a waste of resources trying to educate these folks at this point of time). The people over 35 are going to live 20- 40 years more and would continue to form a good chunk of the population contributing to a bad overall literacy rate.

# It could take 2 more decades for India to get into over 80% literacy rate.

# It could be well 2040-2050 when India gets into 90% plus literacy rate.

I just want to say that we are doing good at the moment and we cant change history. Illiteracy, poverty and a whole lot of social evils cant be driven out of the country overnight and not even a decade. It will take one more generation for India to get to the HDI indicators of the developed nations. And all those people who keep pointing out our poor, illiterate statistics let them do so. Because that is reality and its not going to change soon. But ground reality is that things are improving and they are improving at a good rate. We should take heart from that and continue to work harder and contribute to the growth of India. We will surely see a different India when we folks reach our 50's and lot less fingers would be raised against our children. Lot less pointing out at the HDI Indicators. Till then we got to deal with it.

And yes in my personal opinion, Indians need not be bothered about our military expenditure as I do not think the government is neglecting other sectors by spending in defense. As a matter of fact they can not. Every sector has a voice and they will fight for their budget just like the Army generals are shouting for their budget hike. Criticism of the government from both internal and external sources are very important to keep the government on its toes and do a proper balancing act. Please do not fight people who point out the loopholes as it serves a very important purpose in itself.

 

[RPK]

The Hindu : Education / Issues : India still home to largest illiterate population: UNESCO


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.

 

[Ruag]

I would just like to mention two quick points -

1) Literacy rate of India and Pakistan -

India - 61% Pakistan - 49.9%

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf

2) Expenditure on defence as a percentage of GDP -

India - 2.5% Pakistan - 3%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

And yet we have this thread. I welcome all the criticism India receives. But, as I have said numerous times before on this forum, shouldn't Pakistanis be more concerned about the state of affairs in their own country rather than poking their noses in India's internal matters?

 

[RPK]

The Hindu : Education / Issues : Noon meal may be extended to private schools in tribal areas


The Mid Day Meal Scheme, which reaches nearly 12 crore children everyday in government and aided schools, may be extended to privately managed schools in tribal areas and unaided minority institutions.

The Human Resource Development Ministry has set up a committee to examine extension of the scheme to such institutions. The committee had held a meeting of State education secretaries and asked them to suggest their views on how it can be implemented since there is confusion over number of recognised schools in different States.

“In certain States, the elementary schools are recognised by the government, while they are not recognised in a few other States. The question is what should be the criteria to identify schools for inclusion under the scheme,” official sources said.

The committee apprehends that many non-deserving institutions may take advantage of the scheme for lack of proper criteria. A few States have submitted their representation to the ministry so far.

The Mid Day Meal Scheme covers children studying in Class I to Class VIII in government and aided schools and centres under Education Guarantee Scheme and Alternative and Innovative Education, including madrassas supported under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

 

[RPK]

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009


http://beta.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00020/The_Right_of_Childre_20352a.pdf

 

[RPK]

The Hindu : Cities / Chennai : Chennai Corporation to study school dropout

A detailed survey of school dropout will be conducted by Chennai Corporation in all its 10 zones.

This was decided after a meeting of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan’s district-level committee on Friday. A senior official of the civic body said a sample survey conducted in Zone 1 (Tondiarpet) a couple of months ago found 400 children to be out of school. “In response to our tender, several private agencies have submitted proposals for conducting the survey. We are evaluating the proposals. Our non-teaching staff would also take part in the survey,” the official said. A district-level official of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) said that their surveys since March this year showed that around 1,200 children below the age of 14 had dropped out of school. “The figure includes around 200 children identified in the sample survey in Zone 1. As the children have stopped going to school due to some reason, we are first putting them through classes conducted by Educational Volunteers (EV),” the SSA official said.

During the sample survey, nearly 500 children were covered, of which 200 were found to be child labourers. They are being rehabilitated separately. The SSA took in about 200 children and the remaining were found to be either above 14 years of age or were studying in school.

 

[RPK]

The Hindu : News / National : Pitroda for all forms of technology for education

Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information, infrastructure and innovations, has strongly advocated use of all forms technology to impart education in a vast country like India.

“This is the age of information. This is the age of online libraries. So there has to be mobility”, Mr. Pitroda said, while delivering the third Ravenshaw University Development Trust (RUDT) lecture here Saturday night.

Mr. Pitroda, who is also the chairman of National Knowledge Commission (NKC), said all layers of technology should be used for dissemination of information and education.

“As information and communication technology changes, the available tools and applications also change. So we need to harness these tools and look for new models of learning as well”, he pointed out.

Replying to questions from the audience, Mr. Pitroda said the US model of consumerism is no more sustainable and will not work further. This model has lost its shine and we need to change it because it has to change someday, he said asking the youths to actively participate in bringing up this change.

When asked on solutions for different challenges faced by India, the technology wizard said “We need more and more people who will volunteer to work for the poor with less salary. Unfortunately the same is not going to happen with US model of consumerism”, he stressed.

Asking the students to particularly work for ushering a change, he said “In 2010 we need to ask ourselves whether we should carry on with the same old and obsolete processes?

“We don’t need to submit five photocopies of a same certificate attested by a gazetted officer for taking admission into a university. We have to evolve some new systems so that our students can get into universities simply by clicking the mouse of a computer”, he said. Since every process that we pass through now is obsolete and the way we do everything doesn’t make sense, we need to change them, he said.

 

[Free Tibet]

Yes India has lot of illiterates. Like someone pointed out the illiterate percent is about 34%..

# 13% of illiterate of entire population would translate to 20% of the under 35 age population meaning 80% of the population under 35 is literate.

And yes in my personal opinion, Indians need not be bothered about our military expenditure as I do not think the government is neglecting other sectors by spending in defense. As a matter of fact they can not. Every sector has a voice and they will fight for their budget just like the Army generals are shouting for their budget hike. Criticism of the government from both internal and external sources are very important to keep the government on its toes and do a proper balancing act. Please do not fight people who point out the loopholes as it serves a very important purpose in itself.

Good analysis, this is called out of the box thinking.

But, we have to take care of all. Govt. has started some programs specially dedicated to Women because if we educated a mother then she will see the value of education and automatically send her children for study.

I request to my friends that don't go by Chinese figures because they are twisted and partially true. That's why they are fooling the world.

Here i will give you 2 examples of propaganda statistics

When talking about food diet and starvation China calculate potatoes as food but as per International norms they should not calculate this. India does not add to its diet figures because International norms requires this. Hence, in the end if someone compare between India and China he will find India behind China.

Second example, As per International norms weight of Rice Husk (Dhan or Bhusa) should not calculate when weighting rice but China do this.

If India start adding weight of rice husk with the rice produced India's rice production will be 25% more without growing a single rice strek more.

 

[Dark Angel]

Mods please take a note of this


These are the kind of threads which are deliberately started by some people without looking in the mirror

India is a country with a population of 1 Billion plus and Indpencence of 60+ years still it has 60-70% literacy compared with pakistan at still under 50% and the author insted of concentrating on his on motherland and problems has the courage and shamefullness to point a finger on India who is transparent in defence deals and keeps its budget at 3% ...........WHY ?

 

[Free Tibet]

This is a perfect example of hypocrisy and a flame thread. The intentions is of troll and BS.

 

[footmarks]

StateMaster - Encyclopedia: List of countries by literacy rate

Rank Country Literacy rate
1 Georgia 100.0[1]
1 Finland 100.0[2]
1 Luxembourg 100.0[3]
1 Norway 100.0[4]
5 United States of America 99.9 [5]
6 Cuba 99.8 [2]
6 Estonia 99.8
7 Barbados 99.7
7 Latvia 99.7
7 Poland 99.7
7 Slovenia 99.7
11 Belarus 99.6
11 Lithuania 99.6
11 Slovakia 99.6
14 Kazakhstan 99.5
14 Tajikistan 99.5
16 Armenia 99.4
16 Russian Federation 99.4
16 Ukraine 99.4
19 Hungary 99.3
20 Uzbekistan 99.3
21 Switzerland 99.0
21 Sweden 99.0
21 New Zealand 99.0
21 Netherlands 99.0
21 Japan 99.0
21 Ireland (Republic of) 99.0
21 Iceland 99.0
21 Denmark 99.0
21 Germany 99.0
21 France 99.0
21 Czech Republic 99.0
21 Belgium 99.0
21 Canada 99.0
21 Australia 99.0[6]
35 Tonga 98.9
36 Azerbaijan 98.8
36 Turkmenistan 98.8
38 Albania 98.7
38 Kyrgyzstan 98.7
38 Samoa 98.7
41 Trinidad and Tobago 98.6
42 Italy 98.5
43 Romania 98.4 [3]
44 Bulgaria 98.2
45 Croatia 98.1
46 Austria 98.0
47 South Korea 97.9
48 Mongolia 97.8
48 Greece 97.8
50 Spain 97.7
50 Uruguay 97.7
52 Argentina 97.5
53 Maldives 97.2
54 Israel 96.9
55 Cyprus 96.8
56 Guyana 96.5
57 Montenegro 96.4[7]
58 Moldova 96.2
59 Republic of Macedonia 96.1
59 Taiwan 96.1
61 Grenada 96.0
62 Costa Rica 95.8
63 Chile 95.7
64 Bahamas 95.5
65 Bosnia and Herzegovina 94.6
66 Colombia 94.2
67 Hong Kong S.A.R. of the People's Republic of China 93.5
68 Venezuela 93.0
69 Fiji 92.9
70 Brunei 92.7
71 Philippines 92.6
71 Thailand 92.6
73 Malta 92.5
73 Portugal 92.5
73 Singapore 92.5
76 Palestinian territories 91.9
76 Panama 91.9
76 Seychelles 91.9
79 Paraguay 91.6
80 Ecuador 91.0
81 People's Republic of China (mainland only) 90.9
82 Sri Lanka 90.4
83 Mexico 90.3
83 Vietnam 90.3
85 Saint Lucia 90.1
86 Zimbabwe 90.0
87 Jordan 89.9
88 Myanmar 89.7
89 Qatar 89.2
90 Malaysia 88.7
91 Brazil 88.4
92 Turkey 88.3
93 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 88.1
94 Dominica 88.0
94 Suriname 88.0
96 Indonesia 87.9
97 Bahrain 87.7
97 Dominican Republic 87.7
97 Peru 87.7
100 Jamaica 87.6
93 Bolivia 86.5
93 Lebanon 86.5
94 Antigua and Barbuda 85.8
95 Namibia 85.0
96 Mauritius 84.3
97 Equatorial Guinea 84.2
98 São Tomé and Principe 83.1
99 Kuwait 82.9
99 Syria 82.9
100 Congo 82.8
110 South Africa 82.4
111 Libya 81.7
112 Lesotho 81.4
113 Iran 80.0
113 Honduras 80.0
115 El Salvador 79.7
116 Saudi Arabia 79.4
117 Swaziland 79.2
118 Botswana 78.9
118 Tanzania 78.2
119 United Arab Emirates 77.3
120 Belize 76.9
121 Nicaragua 76.7
122 Solomon Islands 76.6
123 Cape Verde 75.7
124 Oman 74.4
125 Tunisia 74.3
126 Vanuatu 74.0
127 Cambodia 73.6
127 Kenya 73.6
129 Gabon 71.0
130 Madagascar 70.6
131 Algeria 69.8
133 Guatemala 69.1
134 Uganda 68.9
135 Laos 68.7
136 Cameroon 67.9
136 Zambia 67.9
138 Angola 66.8
138 Nigeria 66.8
140 Djibouti 65.5
141 Democratic Republic of Congo 65.3
142 Malawi 64.1
143 Rwanda 64.0
144 Morocco 61.6 [4]
145 India 61.0
146 Sudan 59.0
147 Burundi 58.9
148 Timor-Leste 58.6
149 Papua New Guinea 57.3
150 Eritrea 56.7
151 Comoros 56.2
152 Egypt 55.6
153 Pakistan 54.2
154 Ghana 54.1
155 Togo 53.0
156 Haiti 51.9
157 Mauritania 51.2
158 Yemen 49.0
159 Central African Republic 48.6
160 Nepal 48.6
161 Côte d’Ivoire 48.1
162 Bhutan 47.0
163 Mozambique 46.5
164 Ethiopia 41.5
165 Bangladesh 41.1
166 Guinea 41.0
167 Guinea-Bissau 39.6
168 Senegal 39.3
169 Gambia 37.8
170 Afghanistan 36.0
171 Benin 33.6
172 Sierra Leone 29.6
173 Chad 25.5
174 Mali 19.0
175 Niger 14.4
176 Burkina Faso 12.8

When the thread starter said India tops in illiteracy - does that mean countries below India in this list are not true countries? or does these are not considered important enough to be educated?
Or, this thread is intentionally been started with such misleading heading just to tease we Indians here. Beware man, you are inviting trouble. We can also start similar thread like _ India tops Illiteracy charts and Pakistan does not even come in it with negligible literacy. Or even better like India tops the Illitercy charts but China catching up fast.