world leader of uneducated people: INDIA

About 35% of world's illiterate population is Indian and, based on historic patterns of literacy growth across the world, India may account for a majority of the world's illiterates by 2020.

The table below shows the adult and youth literacy rates for India and some neighbouring countries in 2002 Adult literacy rate is based on the 15+ years age group, while Youth literacy rate is for the 15–24 years age group (i.e. youth is a subset of adults).

1. Kerala is the most literate state in India, with 93.91% literacy, followed closely by Lakshadweep at 92.28%. Bihar is the least literate state in India with 63.82% literacy. Several other social indicators of the two states are correlated with these rates, such as life expectancy at birth (71.61 for males and 75 for females in Kerala, 65.66 for males and 64.79 for females in Bihar), infant mortality per 1,000 live births (10 in Kerala, 61 in Bihar), birth rate per 1,000 people (16.9 in Kerala, 30.9 in Bihar) and death rate per 1,000 people (6.4 in Kerala, 7.9 in Bihar)
2. Every census since 1881 had indicated rising literacy in the country, but the population growth rate had been high enough that the absolute number of illiterates rose with every decade. The 2001-2011 decade is the second census period (after the 1991-2001 census period) when the absolute number of Indian illiterates declined (by 31,196,847 people), indicating that the literacy growth rate is now outstripping the population growth rate 

Women's education

Women have much lower literacy rate than men. Far fewer girls are enrolled in the schools, and many of them drop out. According to a 1998 report by U.S. Department of Commerce, the chief barrier to female education in India are inadequate school facilities (such as sanitary facilities), shortage of female teachers and gender bias in curriculum (majority of the female characters being depicted as weak and helpless).Conservative cultural attitudes, especially among Muslims, prevents some girls from attending school.

The number of literate women among the female population of India was between 2–6% from the British Raj onwards to the formation of the Republic of India in 1947. Concerted efforts led to improvement from 15.3% in 1961 to 28.5% in 1981. By 2001 literacy for women had exceeded 50% of the overall female population, though these statistics were still very low compared to world standards and even male literacy within India. Recently the Indian government has launchedSaakshar Bharat Mission for Female Literacy. This mission aims to bring down female illiteracy by half of its present level.

" EDUCATE OUR GIRL CHILD "

Our university system is, in many parts, in a state of disrepair...In almost half the districts in the country, higher education enrollments are abysmally low, almost two-third of our universities and 90 per cent of our colleges are rated as below average on quality parameters... I am concerned that in many states university appointments, including that of vice-chancellors, have been politicised and have become subject to caste and communal considerations, there are complaints of favouritism and corruption.

– Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2007