Thiruvananthapuram: Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday declared Kerala as the first Indian state to have achieved total primary education.
“Kerala has added another feather to her educational cap through the successful culmination of the `Athulyam’ programme aimed at ensuring total primary education, equivalent to Class IV of formal education,” he said.
“The formal external evaluation of the programme was conducted by the state resource centre of the ministry of human resource development, Government of India. The findings of the report estimate that the programme was successfully implemented fulfilling all the aims and objectives as envisaged in the project prepared by the Kerala state literacy mission authority for this purpose,” the Vice-President added. Ansari said the spread of educa tion in Kerala has led to enhancement of individual freedom and capacity for demanding better health care, more public services and monitoring their delivery, a better climate for gender equity , and above all, much faster reduction in poverty than in many other states of India.
“The remarkable performance of Kerala on the various socio-economic indicators, which approximate more those of the developed countries than developing ones, are a testimony to the transformative nature of mass education,” said Ansari, The Times of India reported.
Government of India data indicated that Kerala was the best performing state in terms of the decadal growth of population at 4.9% and had a sex ratio of 1,084, the best among Indian states, he said. Infant mortality rate (IMR) was the lowest in Kerala at 12 , against the Indian average of 40. Kerala had a birth rate of 14.7 compared to Indian average of 21.4. These figures have their root in the state’s good literacy statistics, he said.
“The percentage of households availing banking services, for example was 74.2 in Kerala compared to a national average of 58.7. Similarly, the percentage of households with toilets, something that the central government has been pushing strongly under the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, in Kerala was 95.2 compared to India’s average of 46.8%,” he said.