Silver lining: In Telangana youth lead literacy brigade

HYDERABAD: Though the overall literacy rate in Telangana stands at a poor 66.46 per cent as against the national average of 74.04 per cent, it is the youth who are carrying the flag of the state high on the education front by surpassing the all-India literacy average in the age group of 7 years to 24 years.
Barring this, the state is faring poor on the literacy front among the age group of 25-80 years.The literacy rate has consistently been far lower among this age group in Telangana compared to the national average.
The literacy rate in Telangana in the age group of 7 - 24 years is higher compared to the national level average. For example, males and females aged between 18 and 24 years have registered 90 per cent and 79.5 per cent literacy ratio respectively at the state level. This is higher than the national average which stands at 89.3 per cent and 79.1per cent respectively in the corresponding age group. These are the figures compiled by the planning department officials after studying the data from 2011. “We have appointed consultants from the UNICEF and the Centre For Good Governance to study and suggest strategies to improve the literacy levels in Telangana. Our aim is to take Telangana to the top 3 most literate states in India in the next few years and number one in the country in the next 15 years through strategic interventions,“ said special chief secretary of planning department, BP Acharya. He said that though this literacy data was from the 2011 census, the planning department is utilising the data as there would not be a huge change in literacy levels. It gives some data for consultants to work on and take Telangana to higher literacy levels, Acharya said.
Preliminary studies by the consultants have revealed that about 71per cent of li terates are in secondary school while the remaining 29 per cent above the secondary level include technical diploma holders.
“We have found a huge gap of about 20 per cent between male and female literacy rates in certain age groups and this area needs to be given priority to improve female literacy in the state“, said S Ravi, a consultant from UNICEF.