Literacy in India

“Education is not only a ladder of opportunity, but it is also an investment in our future”. - Ed Markey

Literacy is generally defined as the ability to read, write but it a lot more than that. It is the ability of a person to communicate in a meaningful way in their daily life.

Literacy and education are two of the most important features that highlight the development of human resources and subsequently of the country.

It is important that a country has a high rate of literate people as literacy not only affects the people but also the growth of the country if the people of the country are literate and educated it will result in more development, a higher level of understanding between the people and improvement in other sociological factors such as poverty, unemployment, etc.

There are many factors that can be considered a reason for low literacy in India but the roots of most of these reasons can be found in Overpopulation.

India is the second-largest country in the world in terms of population and the corresponding landmass and facilities available are considerably low than other countries with a much lesser population. 

Since the country’s independence, education has been one of the major issues that the government and various organizations have tried to tackle. The efforts can be recognized by the many programs launched to educate the people of the country and also the funds out aside solely for the purpose of the education sector.

But with all these efforts the conditions still haven’t seen major improvement and the sole reason for this has been the ever-increasing population of the country.

The population becomes a major factor as even though the system tries to educate the people through various programs and “yojanas”, there are still limitations to the reach of the programs and this big population requires micro-management which the government fails to provide.

Literacy in India is still lacking behind in comparison to the development in other sectors of the country.

The education and literacy of the people in a developing nation such as India should be a priority aim as the changes and innovations that take place in a country will be resisted by those who fail to understand them, thereby hindering the progress of the country.