Vignesh Nandkumar presents an analysis of the Educations trends in India, and its correlation to social and economic changes. This was first published in the Education Review

The Directive Principles of State policy directs the State to provide free and compulsory education for all children under the age of 14. This far reaching directive was aimed at using literacy as a catalytic tool for social upliftment. Through the censuses, statistics have been collected at the state of literacy in the country, by different regions and categories. This forms the basis of this study of education in India with an attempt to examine the trends in the context of regional, economical and demographical contexts.

The statistical analysis of literacy trends in the census underwent a change in 1991, when it was decided not to include the population below the age of 6 to calculate literacy percentages. This resulted in a more realistic treatment of literacy statistics, requiring the child to have spent at least a few years in literacy activities, whether formal or non-formal.

The census provides a state-wise breakup of the literacy rates, and by gender. A comparative analysis of the states’ performances in this sphere is also available in the 2001 census (Chapter 7, State of Literacy, Census of India 2001, Series 1, India, Paper 1 of 2001). The analysis, however, does not present a detailed gender wise study of literacy rates and other factors that might reflect on the changes in literacy rates.

This article attempts to present a few corollary socio-economic statistics in tandem with the literacy statistics from the census figures.

India literacy rates: An overall picture

As per the 1991 census, the number of female literates in a population of 686569914 over the age of 7 was 129419492, resulting in a female literacy rate of 18.9% and a male literacy rate of 33.4%. The 2001 census figures show an increase on both counts, though the increase in female literacy is more significant; the female literacy percentages were up to 26.2% and the male literacy rates were 39.3%. The census report declares the 90’s as the Literacy decade, as the number of literates underwent a significant rise. What is more important, however, is to see how the increase in literacy fared in comparison to the increase in population. In the all-India statistics, the fraction of increase in number of literates to the increase in population is 1.18. This is a healthy ratio, which indicates that the increase in number of literates also offsets the increase in population. This also indicates that the real increase in literacy is about 18% on an India-wide scale. The state-wise breakup of the literacy rates presents another interesting perspective.

Effective Growth in Literacy

While the number of literates is bound to increase with the increase in population, it would be fallacious to assume that this is an absolute positive statistics. It is important to consider the increase in number of literates in the context of the increase in population. The census report, unfortunately, does not take this view of the census statistics. In this context, 7 states have recorded an effective negative growth in literacy rates. We can define the effective growth in literacy (EGL) as the increase in number of literates less the increase in population as a fraction of the population not classified as literate in the 1991 census. The following tables record the population of India over the age of 7, and the EGL of various states in the ‘91-’01 period. They include both the over all statistics and the gender specific statistics.

Table 1: State wise breakup of the growth in population and literacy numbers (EGL)

From the table, four groups of states can be identified, those that have outperformed the national average, those that have underperformed, with a negative EGL, those that have underperformed, with a low but positive EGL and those that have maintained the national EGL. We will try to understand how these trends correlate to similar statistics in a gender specific context and also the economic performances of various states.

Among the states that have tackled the problem of illiteracy alongside the increase in population, Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh have performed better on the EGL scale. This implies that they have ensured that during the increase in population, the number of illiterates reduced during the decade. This reflects a more concrete change on the ground situation than quoting relative increases in literacy rates. The relative increases in literacy rates do not appreciate the increase in population during the decade and the subsequent increase in the number of illiterates. Hence the fall in literacy rates is under-stressed and the rise in literacy rates is over-stressed by a simple increase statistic.

Comparatively, the performance of Chandigarh, Delhi, Nagaland, and Bihar can be classified as severely poor, for not only have they performed below the national average in terms of EGL, but the number of illiterates has also increased. Some of this could be attributed to migration of population to these places, in the case of Chandigarh and Delhi.

Sikkim, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Kerala, while performing poorer than the national average on the EGL scale, still have managed to maintain a positive EGL. Kerala however represents a markedly different situation than the remaining states and the literacy rates are already way higher in Kerala compared to the rest. Hence, the scope for a substantial increase in EGL is much lower in Kerala compared to the rest of the states in India.

Over the period from 1991-2001, three new states were created due to political and regional considerations. The hope had been that the new smaller states would be able to better facilitate the development of these regions. The census figures given below for the literacy rates in the 6 states are given below:

Table 2: Literacy rates and Effective Growth of Literacy in the newly formed states

As is evident from the statistics above, the break away states have performed much better on literacy rates and the effective growth in literacy as compared to the states that they were part of in 1991. The contribution of the initial demographic distribution is unclear in the census numbers, however, it can be concluded that the splitting of states has resulted in a marked difference in the increase in literacy levels.

For the current study, we will maintain the original set of states as in 1991. Hence, in the 2001 census, the numbers of Jharkhand and Bihar have been combined, as have the numbers for Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh.

Gender Disparity in literacy rates

Another useful statistic is the gender gap in literacy rates over the 10 years. Gender wise numbers of the state wise literacy statistics are unavailable for the 1991 census. These statistics would have facilitated a comparison similar to the EGL for the male and female literacy rates.The following graph illustrates the gender disparity in literacy rates between 91 and 2001

Chart 1: Literacy rates by state and gender (from Table 3)

The graph suggests that the male literacy levels improved considerably over the decade. It is also noteworthy from the graph that the difference between the male-female literacy rates has gone down slowly from 91-2001, even if by a small fraction (~ 3% all over India). Chandigarh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have had the highest drop in this gender gap.

However, in terms of absolute numbers, female literacy still lags male literacy levels by more than 20%. It is evident in the graph above that the female literacy levels are as poorer than 50% in some of the states like Rajasthan, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. The increase in female literacy rates is commendable in Orissa, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. However, since these figures are not normalized to the increases in female population during this period, they do not form a complete statistic for comparison. In this context, there is no current evidence that the formation of new states has made a significant improvement in female literacy, even though there were better overall literacy figures for the newly formed states (See Table 2). This can be easily verified with more relevant information on the increase in the population over the age of 7 across the states in both the sexes from 1991-2001.

This suggests that the issue of female literacy has not been an area of focus for the new administrations as well.

Table 3: Literacy rates by gender and state, and gender gap in literacy rates by state

Literacy levels and the increase in urban population

A very useful statistic available from the census numbers of 1991 and 2001 is the urban/rural divide in the population by state and gender. The overall % increase in male and female population across the country are almost equal, suggesting that while the sex ratios haven’t gotten better over the decade, they haven’t become too worse either ( See chart 2) . The difference in the trends in the urban vs rural sector is quite interesting. Chart 3 presents the gender-wise increase in population in the urban vs rural areas. Quite evidently, there has been a tremendous increase in urban population over the past decade, with the increase in urban population almost double that of the rural population across India. Some of the states have had a more than 5 fold increase in urban population as compared to the rural population (See chart 4).

Chart 2: Increase in population (Urban + Rural)

Dadar and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu have witnessed huge growth in the population from 1991-2001, presumably due to large scale migration to these union territories from the neighbouring states. Hence, the statistics for these two union territories are not presented in the following charts.

Chart 3: Increase in urban and rural population, gender-wise

From the above chart, it can be inferred that the percentage increase in male and female population were almost similar in the rural areas, whereas they present a wider gap in the urban areas. This is especially evident in states like Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. It is also seen that in some of the states, there has been a greater percentage increase in urban female population compared to the urban male population (viz. Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal). However, all states almost all states have shown a greater increase in urban population as compared to the rural population (Chart 4)

Chart 4: Ration of increase in urban- rural population

The negative ratios indicate a drop in rural population over the decade, as compared to a significant rise in urban population during the same time.

It was considered that urbanization might lead to increased literacy levels, as the access to education in urban areas is better than in the rural areas. Though this seems to be true in the case of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, it does not indicate a universal phenomenon across India. Kerala, for example, has managed to increase literacy (EGL) rates, while having a greater increase in rural population as compared to the urban population. Chandigarh, Delhi, Nagaland and Bihar have had negative effective growth in literacy (EGL) though they have had a significant growth in urban population. Delhi presents a startling picture, as the urbanization has proceeded at a rapid pace. Inspite of having advantages of being the national capital, there has been a decrease in effective literacy rates during the 91-2001 decade.

In the overall picture, there could be a slight correlation between urbanization and the EGL.

Conclusions

Universal literacy can be achieved only if we understand the trends in demographical increases, by gender and region. The current statistics of calculating relative literacy rates needs to be replaced with a statistic more indicative of the drop in absolute illiteracy numbers, taking the increase in population into account. It is suggested that the effective growth in literacy, as defined in this article, be used as one such statistic.

The gender-wise study of literacy rates suggest that there are significant gaps in the female literacy levels, that has not been addressed both by the formation of new administrative units and rapid urbanization. Given that the sex ratios are already quite poor across India, there must be a renewed focus on increasing the literacy rates amongst women, especially in the worst performing states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

This is also a matter of urgency as these states represent a greater proportion of the population of India and some of them have also performed better economically, (in terms of the State Domestic Product). This increase in economic levels has not translated to better female literacy levels .

A more detailed study of the district-wise statistics of literacy levels will be informative on the performance of various education schemes such as the mid day meal programs and the DPEP.

References
1. Census of India, 1991, 2001
2. Issues in school education in contemporary Kerala, C.P. Chandrashekar, V.K.Ramachandran, R. Ramkumar, 2001
3. Current Government Policies towards Health, Education and Poverty Alleviation in India: An Evaluation, Praveen Jha, 2003
4. Economic Survey of 2003-2004 (www.macroscan.org)

Vignesh Nandkumar is a volunteer with Asha for Education and an editor of the Education Review.

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