India Needs Another 56 Years To Achieve Female Youth Literacy

BANGALORE: India has by far witnessed the largest population of world’s illiterate adults at 287 million, amounting to 37 percent of the global total. As such, fulfilling complete literacy especially for young women will likely take over 5 decades, said a recent UN report titled, Education for All Global Monitoring Report. This, despite the fact that the country has adopted some strong literacy programmes since 1974.

The report revealed that because of the huge gender disparities in global education, around 100 million young women in low and lower middle income countries are still unable to read a single sentence.

A developing country like India still needs a lot more efforts to take it to the next level and make education universally accessible. The ongoing adult literacy programmes in the country mostly target the urban and the semi-urban population. So far, education in India has remained the preserve of the rich and women belonging to economically stronger sections have already achieved universal literacy. But the poorest section of women may touch the benchmark only towards the end of 21st century.

Irina Bokova, director general, UNESCO said, "It is simply intolerable that girls are being left behind. For poor girls, education is one of the most powerful routes to a better future, helping them escape from a vicious cycle of poverty," reports TOI.

So, it is high time India should address these current issues at the earliest, if not it will lead to widespread poverty and women will be suppressed more in the society.

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