International Literacy Day (ILD) is celebrated on 8th September every year all over the world
• The celebration of ILD started following a recommendation of the World Conference of Ministers of
Education on the Eradication of Illiteracy which met in Tehran in September 1965.
• UNESCO in 14th Session of its General Conference held in Paris in November 1966, formally proclaimed 8th September as International Literacy Day.
Theme for 2020: "Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond."
National Statistical Office (NSO) has released the data for 2017-18 on state-wise literacy rate in the country for all aged 7 or above.
As per NSO:
1. India's average literacy rate is 77.7%.
2. Andhra Pradesh’s literacy rate of 66.4% is the worst among all states in India and significantly lower than Bihar’s 70.9%.
3. Kerala has the best literacy rate with 96.2%. Delhi stood second with 88.7%.
4. More impressively, the gap between male and female literacy is the smallest in Kerala at just 2.2
percentage points. This gap is 14.4 percentage points at all-India level with male literacy at 84.7% and
female literacy at 70.3%.
5. The gap between urban and rural literacy rates is of the same order of magnitude as that between males and females. Once again, Kerala has the lowest gap of 1.9 percentage
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