Total Literacy

In 1969, Education Ministers from various countries met at Tehran to discuss eradication of illiteracy. Various measures were taken to achieve this goal. In 1987-February 23rd, a new movement called "Appeal" (Asia Pacific Programme of Education For All) was inaugurated in New Delhi, to tackle illiteracy and to provide basic education to all. The association declared that illiteracy is more dangerous in the Third World Countries.  Poverty, scarcity of food, lack of nutrition, ecological deterioration, inefficiency in child education and informal education of elder citizen, technological backwardness, inefficiency in utilizing national resources, increase in debt, human right violation, increase in terrorism, uneven increase in population etc were termed as the major reason for illiteracy. "Appeal" (Asia Pacific Programme of Education For All) stated that literacy has an important role in the fight against these backwardness. The convention also realized that formal education is not sufficient as the number of youths is increasing in an uneven manner in Asian Countries. Thus literacy movement aroused as a total remedy to all these problems. 


In Kerala the total literacy movement was first initiated at Ernakulam District and Kottayam Municipality in the late 80's. On 4th of February 1990, the then Prime Minister Shri V P Singh declared Ernakulam as the first total literate district in India. State wide literacy survey was conducted on 8th of April 1990. 28.52 lakhs of people were found illiterate. With the help of voluntary oraganisations like Sastra Sahitya Parishath class were conducted to educate the illiterate and on 18th of April 1991, Kerala became the first total literate state in India.

Kerala State Literacy Mission

Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority TC 25/92 (2) & (3), Brindavan,
Gandhari Amman Kovil Street
Puthen Chantha, 
Thiruvananthapuram - 01
Phone:0471-2322253/ 2322254
Fax :0471-2322252
  • E-mail
 stateliteracymission@gmail.com

Literacy

Kerala has the highest proportion of literate persons in the population among the Indian States. The effective literacy rate is 93.91 per cent as per Census 2011. In Kerala, 96.02 per cent men and 91.98 per cent of women are literate as against 82.14 per cent of men and 65.46 per cent of women at the all India level. Among Districts, Kottayam tops in literacy with 97.2 per cent followed by Pathanamthitta with 96.5 per cent. Lowest literacy rates are in Wayanad and Palakkad with 89 per cent and 89.3 per cent respectively. Even the lowest literacy rate of Wayanad (89 per cent) is higher than the national average. As compared to 2001, the literacy rate of all the Districts has improved. 
 
Source: ECONOMIC REVIEW 2018

For more information, visit: www.literacymissionkerala.org