India,Nigeria and Pakistan account for 27% of the world's out of school children.As for adult literacy less than 60% of the total adult populaion in South and West Asia -India,Bangladesh and Pakistan can read and write with understanding.This was revealed in UNESCO's Education for All Global monitoring report-2007 released this week.
The reports point out the poor picture of the total literacy campaign taken up by various countries including India.101 of 127 countries are far from achieving total literacy.72 countries would not succeed in bringing down their adult illiteracy levels by half by 2015.India is already at the bottom of the list.The number of out of school fell most dramatically in South and West Asia from 31 million in 1999 to 17 million in 2005.Girls form 66% of the out of school children in this region.In India nearly 70 lakh children are out of school.India is also among the 17 countries where survival for boys is higher than girls in primary education. Pakistan and Nepal have a better chance of surviving till the last grade of primary school.
The report talks highly of initiatives like the Sarva Shiksha Abiyan and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya launched by India.The report calls Edusat a revolution launched to meet the demand for greater access to 10,000 new schools every year.With barely 4.1% of GNP being spent on education by India,the report says India receives 11% of all aid that comes from overseas funding agencies to basic education in South and West Asia.
The report admits that there is a large gap between the NER as calculated at the national level and that at the international level mainly due to disputed population data.
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