KOLKATA: Literacy rate among Muslims in Bengal has moved past the days of the Sachar Committee review and risen 11.27% in the past decade. It is also marginally ahead of the national rate.
According to the 2011 census data released on Wednesday, Muslim literacy rate in the state has risen to 68.74% from 57.47% recorded in the 2001 census. The national Muslim literacy rate stands at 68.53%.
The comparable figures for Hindu literacy rate in the 2011 Census stands at 79.13% — a shade above the state figure of 77.08%.
According to the census, Bengal has 6.15 crore literates (leaving out the 1.05 crore in the 0-6 age group). Around 66.66% or 4.5 crore of them are Hindus; the remaining 23.42% are Muslims. Among the 2.9 crore illiterates in the state, 1.86 crore are Hindus and 1.02 crore Muslims.
The figure appears stark when one considers that only 27.01% of the state’s 9.12 crore population are Muslims. This means, a whopping 41.5% of the state’s Muslim population are do not know how to read or write.
"The incremental increase is encouraging. Anything less would have been alarming given the fact that literacy is the very basic indicator. Between 2001-2011, a lot of impetus was provided by various Central schemes to arrest school dropout rates. I believe, this has an impact. The challenge now is to transfer this growth to higher education," said Dr Amzed Hossain, English professor in the Aliya University.
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