Tamil Nadu India's most literate state: HRD ministry

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu has emerged at the top in the literacy drive, leaving Kerala in second place. This is mainly because of the rising number of drop-outs in Kerala, which Tamil Nadu has been able to curb, according to the latest HRD ministry statistics.
While the ability of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other southern states to be in the forefront in this sphere is not in doubt, the general problem, according to a senior Union government official dealing with the subject, was that the statistics did not tell the full story.
"The government ends up producing statistics, rather than students, and children are at times promoted without examination to achieve this," the official, who did not wished to be identified, said.
However, when viewed at the micro level, the achievement of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), launched last year, has been quite satisfactory. In an isolated place like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the administration is close to achieving 100 per cent success in bringing all children in the 6-14 age group into the literacy mainstream.
Children of the Onge tribe, who constitute 6.5 per cent of the total child population of the islands, have for the first time been covered. Sixtythree Onge children are in school, but 462 remain. The administration is striving to retain them in schools.
Kerala has nearly 99 per cent enrolment at the primary level, the nation''s best. However, the number of children dropping out at the elementary (six to 11 years) stage is rising.
The state''s annual plan for 2003-04 has announced opening of an Educational Guarantee Scheme to enrol the left-outs and the drop-outs, while concentrating on quality education.
Tamil Nadu, on its part, has utilised the SSA, is providing its 64,000 habitations with primary schools within a radius of 1 km or a population of 300.
The 741 habitations, or 1.1 per cent of the total, which do not have primary schools, would have them by this year. The upper primary level access rate is 97.3 per cent, leaving 1,078 habitations without a school within a 3-km radius.
Tamil Nadu can boast of 83 per cent enrolment in the six-11 age group and 90 per cent in the 12-14 age group. This covers scheduled caste (SC) children, where the rise is from 82 per cent, when the SSA was launched in 2001, to 89 per cent now at the primary level and from 80 to 87 per cent at the upper primary level.
The statistics indicate that Tamil Nadu''s main achievement lies in retaining students up to the elementary level and beyond, its percentage rising from 57 per cent to 69 per cent and the dropout rate coming down from 16 per cent to 13 per cent.