Census 2011: Literacy rate up by over 4.5%, gap between male & female narrows

NEW DELHI: Census 2011 has brought glad tidings on the literacy front. Delhi’s literacy rate — recorded as 86.34% — has gone up by 4.67% in comparison to Census 2001, which recorded a literacy rate of 81.67%. One of the significant developments is the narrowing of the gap between male and female literacy rate — a drop of 2.53% — which is also the highest dip recorded so far. The difference between male and female literacy rates in Delhi, which is 10.10%, is also 6.58% less than that recorded in the national literacy rate — an indication of great strides being made in educating women in the city.

The overall growth in the literacy rate, however, is one of the lowest recorded so far — just higher than the 1971 Census, which recorded a growth of 3.13%.
Former director of National Council for Educational Research and Training, J S Rajput , told TOI: “The growth in literacy can be attributed to the rising awareness among the masses and has little to do with government initiatives.”

He added, “The realization among the masses that without education their children don’t have a future has spurred the growth in literacy. Though the government has spent Rs 77,000 crore on Commonwealth Games, the infrastructure in primary schools is woefully inadequate. Can’t it provide land and building to the 60 primary schools running in tents? Books and sweaters never reach the children on time. A lot needs to be done to remedy the iniquitous system and to ensure that each child has access to proper education. With the kind of resources at the disposal of the Delhi government, it should have also come up with some data on the impact of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 in its first year of implementation. That would have given us a better picture,” said Rajput.

Among the nine districts in Delhi, the north has shown the highest growth of 6.71% in comparison with the literacy rate seen in Census 2001. After the north, New Delhi emerged as the next most literate district with the east ranking third. In the 2001 Census , the east had conquered the top slot. It is noteworthy that all the districts crossed the 80% mark of literacy in the last decade.

Principal of Springdales, Pusa Road, Ameeta Mulla Wattal, said a lot needs to be done in terms of female literacy. “Though the RTE Act has helped in bringing about general awareness, a lot still needs to be done to bring girls to schools. The situation in public schools is also worrisome as even there we see a trend of more boys taking admission . A concerted effort is needed to create gender balance in classrooms,’’ she said.

“Delhi has an edge as it is the capital and most of the reform activities are first implemented in Delhi. We need to capitalize on that and have a more aggressive approach to not only improve the literacy rate further, but also bridge the gap between male and female literacy,” Wattal added.