UP literacy rate catching up with national average

As per 2011 census, UP narrowed the literacy rate gap with national average from 8.5% to 5.3

Uttar Pradesh (UP) literacy rate has shown marked improvement over the last decade and narrowed gap with the national average.

According to the 2011 Census, UP narrowed the literacy rate gap with national average from 8.5 per cent to 5.3.

Technically, a person aged seven years and above is literate, if s(he) can read and write, with understanding, in any language.

The literacy rate in UP now stands at 67.7 per cent against 56.3 per cent in 2001. The corresponding figures for India are 73 per cent (2011) and 64.8 per cent (2001) respectively.

Whilst, India’s average literacy rate improved by 8.2 per cent during 2001-2011, the state of UP improved its tally by 11.4 per cent.

The female literacy rate growth has been almost double compared to males, which shows that the skewed educational scenario vis-à-vis girls is slowly improving in UP. While, the decadal literacy rate among males grew by 8.5 per cent, the growth amongst females was 15 per cent.

There are almost 11.45 crore literate persons in UP, of the total population of over 19.98 crore. Almost, 8.53 crore and 2.92 crore literates are based in rural and urban areas respectively.

The UP Directorate of Census Operations today released final Census data pertaining to the districts and tehsils levels in UP.

As per Census, cultivators form 29 per cent of the total state workers, which comprised both main and marginal workers. The total workers’ number is 6.58 crore in UP. Main worker is one who worked for 6 months or more during the reference year, while marginal worker worked for less than 6 months.

Agricultural labourers comprised 30.3 per cent of the state workers, while household industries workers form 5.9 per cent of the workers. ‘Other workers’ comprised the largest group at 2.29 crore or 34.8 per cent of workers.