Tue 07 September 2021:
Kerala, India’s southernmost state, has consistently demonstrated a higher human development index, including higher literacy rates, despite being less industrialized than its bordering provinces.
According to a poll released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in September last year, the region had a literacy rate of almost 96 percent, the highest in the country, which had an average literacy rate of 77.7%.
On the eve of International Literacy Day, which falls on Wednesday, educationists and provincial government officials claim that mass literacy efforts began during the British colonial period.
Many other provinces over the years have been sending their officials to study the Kerala model and emulate it in their regions.
“Every household in Kerala wants their children to be literate. I think it has become a custom of the parents, how poor they are, they would never stop the education of their children,” said Geetha Janet Vitus, who heads Education Department at Kerala University.
The entire literacy movement began in the late 1980s in Ernakulam District and Kottayam Municipality, according to government documents.
A decade later, Prime Minister V P Sigh announced Ernakulam to be India’s first completely literate district.
The desire for education is shared by both men and women. Women who were once forbidden to leave the house, according to Vitus, now travel to other countries to further their education.
Lakshadweep, an idyllic archipelago of 36 islands in Kerala, with a 97 percent Muslim population and the highest literacy rate in the country.
Kerala has a population of 26.6 percent Muslims, 18.4 percent Christians, and 54.9 percent Hindus, according to the 2011 census.
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