Rajasthan: India's seventh largest state, lowest in female literacy State now seeks to improve its overall literacy rate, which is lower than some African nations
LATEST NEWS: Rajasthan–a state that has India’s fourth-lowest literacyrate–has signed understandings with the Tata Trusts (an Indian trust) and Khan Academy (a global nonprofit) to improve learning levels of students in government schools.
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The interventions are aimed at addressing the education crisis in Rajasthan, which recorded an overall literacy rate of 67%–less than Cameroon, Egypt and Ghana–and the country’s lowest
female
literacy
rate
(52.66%),
according
to
Census
2011.
Rajasthan’s
female literacy rate is worse than the average for the Arab world and “fragile and conflictaffected” countries, according to World Bank data. India’s seventh most populated state (68.5 million people), with 24% of its population between the ages of six and 14,Rajasthan also has many children out of school (5%), according to government data.
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13% As the first part of this series observed, literacy rates and learning outcomes are some of the lowest in the BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) states. By 2020, India will have the world’s largest working-age population–869 million–but an India Spend analysis of these four states–with 43.6% of India’s school-age population between the age of five and 14–revealed that India is unprepared to educate and train its young population. Rajasthan’s overall literacy rate improved 6.6 percentage points over 10 years to 2011, data show, against an all-India improvement of 9.2 percentage points to 74.04% from 64.8%. But these improvements hide some of India’s sharpest declines in learning levels, particularly in rural government schools.
As learning levels decline, so does government school enrolment Even though the state’s pupil teacher ratio at the primary level, from grade I to V (17), upper primary level, from grade V to VIII (10), and the classroom teacher ratio (21) at the elementary school level (grade I to VIII) is better than the Indian average, learning outcomes have not improved. Reading and arithmetic levels of students between standards II and V have declined across government and private schools in rural Rajasthan, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014.
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