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Ministry contests UNESCO figure on literacy

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 20. The Human Resource Development Ministry has contested the India-specific figures provided in UNESCO's report on the global monitoring of Education For All (EFA) as they show the country at a serious risk of not achieving any of the three goals set in Dakar for primary enrolment, adult literacy and gender disparity by 2015.

For one, the report is anchored on dated data and does not take into account the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan through which the Government has committed $20 billion for elementary education over the first decade of this century.

Based as the report — prepared by an international team led by Christopher Colclough — is on old statistics, the adult literacy rate has been placed at 57.2 per cent as against the actual figure of 61 per cent.

The adult literacy rate (the 15+ age bracket) was 57.2 per cent in 1998.

And, with the growth rate in this sector expected to be around 18 percentage points, the adult literacy rate, according to the Ministry, is poised to reach 79 per cent by 2010; close to the 80 per cent that countries committed to the Dakar goals have to achieve by 2015.

As for the team's contention that India was moving away from the EFA goal of 80 per cent primary enrolment, the Indian argument is that this position was based on the fact that India does not have a Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) figure to show such as other countries.

Conceding that India has not been reporting the NER in the countrywide educational statistics due to difficulties in collection of age-specific data of children in school, the Indian counter is that enrolment figures were available from the District Primary Education Programme and the National Family Health Survey; both of which have put enrolment around 85 per cent, a good five per cent above the cut-off point of 80 per cent.

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