To truly empower, one must have access to the basics of learning which starts with literacy.
Illiteracy in India is defined as follows: "a person aged seven and above, who can both read and write with understanding in any one language, is treated as literate."
The district of Alirajpur ranks no.1 for illiteracy in the entire country.
While this is not a proud statistic, it's an opportunity for the foundation to right the wrong. In over 70 years of independent India, our administration has failed its people to have the "right to education" in the region.
Statistically speaking*
(Data from OxFam India)
1. India is home to the largest population of 287 million illiterate adults in the world. This amounts to 37% of the global total.
2. 47.78% out of school children in India are girls. They will be calculated as illiterate women in the next census and this will have an impact on the education of their children.
3. Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are amongst the bottom five states in terms of literacy of Dalits in India.
4. India’s literacy rate has increased six times since Independence. Though the literacy rate has increased from 12% in 2001 to 74% in 2011 yet India has the world’s largest population of illiterate adults.
5. The literacy rate of female Dalits in Bihar was 38.5% in 2011. It is far behind India’s progress trend. It is still 30 years behind India’s national literacy Rate which was 43.7 in 1981.
6. 60 lakh children in India are still out-of-school.
7. 92% of government schools are yet to fully implement the RTE Act.
8. India is ranked at 123 out of 135 countries in female literacy rate.
9. India ranks fourth in the South Asian region behind Sri Lanka with a female-male ratio of 0.97 and Bangladesh with a female-male ratio of 0.85.
10. The percentage of women to the total number of school teachers has gone up from 29.3% in 1991 to 47.16% in 2013-14.