Female Literacy Levels Rising In Southern Region

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Bangalore: : The future of the four southern states looks promising in the light of an increased female literacy rate. Overall, too, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have scored high on literacy.

Today, 56.04 per cent of women are literate in Karnataka, 64.55 per cent in TN, 87.86 per cent in Kerala and 51.17 per cent in Andhra. Though its counterparts in the south had a better start, Andhra’s female literacy rate shot up by 18.45 per cent during the last 10 years from a measly 32.72 per cent in 1991, to bring it closer to its neighbours in the region.

Analysts point out that it was not only the state’s performance, but active people’s participation that helped achieve such a high growth rate in literacy. As per the 1991 Census report, 44.34 per cent of Karnataka’s women are literate, 51.33 per cent in TN and 86.17 per cent in Kerala. Hence, Karnataka’s female literacy levels rose by 11 per cent, TN 13.22 per cent and Kerala, which seems to have reached a point of saturation, saw a marginal 1.69 per cent rise in female literacy to 87.86 per cent.

Further, all the southern states have fared well in their literacy programmes for the entire population, too. However, once again Andhra saw the highest growth of 17.03 per cent rise in literacy level as per Census 2001 report to 61.11 per cent last year against 44.08 per cent in 1991. Karnataka is today 67.04 per cent literate compared with 56.04 per cent 10 years ago, TN saw a 10 per cent rise to 73.47 (62.66) and Kerala 1.11 per cent rise to 90.02 (89.81). According to the director of Census operations, Karnataka, H Shashidhar, the next Paper III of Census 2001 would clearly show that a higher percentage of women in Karnataka are employed in absolute numbers.