India : Population (Part – IV)

Efforts needed to take India's Literacy rate to greater heights

• Revamping the teacher education (TE) system
  ∗ We should focus on revamping curriculum and pedagogy to bring modern and innovative elements within it and making it a lot more rigorous.
• Create a national discourse and imperative around the importance of good quality school leadership. This will help in improving and maintaining school quality, nurturing a learning culture within schools, maintaining teacher motivation, ensuring respect for and involvement of all stakeholders
• Work on expanding the idea of good education. There is need to extend it beyond rote learning of concepts. It should largely focus on cognitive development to a belief that values the uniqueness of a child and the celebration of different definitions of 'intelligence'.
• Extend the scope. With the Right to Education (RTE) Act now making primary education compulsory, there is need look at extending its scope to include pre-primary education (which is not there in all states).

Efforts needed to take India's Literacy rate to greater heights

• Revamping the teacher education (TE) system
  ∗ We should focus on revamping curriculum and pedagogy to bring modern and innovative elements within it and making it a lot more rigorous.
• Create a national discourse and imperative around the importance of good quality school leadership. This will help in improving and maintaining school quality, nurturing a learning culture within schools, maintaining teacher motivation, ensuring respect for and involvement of all stakeholders
• Work on expanding the idea of good education. There is need to extend it beyond rote learning of concepts. It should largely focus on cognitive development to a belief that values the uniqueness of a child and the celebration of different definitions of 'intelligence'.
• Extend the scope. With the Right to Education (RTE) Act now making primary education compulsory, there is need look at extending its scope to include pre-primary education (which is not there in all states).

As per Census 2001 and 2011, among all Indian States Mizoram has the highest literacy rate after Kerala.

Efforts needed to take India's Literacy rate to greater heights

• Revamping the teacher education (TE) system
  ∗ We should focus on revamping curriculum and pedagogy to bring modern and innovative elements within it and making it a lot more rigorous.
• Create a national discourse and imperative around the importance of good quality school leadership. This will help in improving and maintaining school quality, nurturing a learning culture within schools, maintaining teacher motivation, ensuring respect for and involvement of all stakeholders
• Work on expanding the idea of good education. There is need to extend it beyond rote learning of concepts. It should largely focus on cognitive development to a belief that values the uniqueness of a child and the celebration of different definitions of 'intelligence'.
• Extend the scope. With the Right to Education (RTE) Act now making primary education compulsory, there is need look at extending its scope to include pre-primary education (which is not there in all states).

Efforts needed to take India's Literacy rate to greater heights

• Revamping the teacher education (TE) system
  ∗ We should focus on revamping curriculum and pedagogy to bring modern and innovative elements within it and making it a lot more rigorous.
• Create a national discourse and imperative around the importance of good quality school leadership. This will help in improving and maintaining school quality, nurturing a learning culture within schools, maintaining teacher motivation, ensuring respect for and involvement of all stakeholders
• Work on expanding the idea of good education. There is need to extend it beyond rote learning of concepts. It should largely focus on cognitive development to a belief that values the uniqueness of a child and the celebration of different definitions of 'intelligence'.
• Extend the scope. With the Right to Education (RTE) Act now making primary education compulsory, there is need look at extending its scope to include pre-primary education (which is not there in all states).

Efforts needed to take India's Literacy rate to greater heights

• Revamping the teacher education (TE) system
  ∗ We should focus on revamping curriculum and pedagogy to bring modern and innovative elements within it and making it a lot more rigorous.
• Create a national discourse and imperative around the importance of good quality school leadership. This will help in improving and maintaining school quality, nurturing a learning culture within schools, maintaining teacher motivation, ensuring respect for and involvement of all stakeholders
• Work on expanding the idea of good education. There is need to extend it beyond rote learning of concepts. It should largely focus on cognitive development to a belief that values the uniqueness of a child and the celebration of different definitions of 'intelligence'.
• Extend the scope. With the Right to Education (RTE) Act now making primary education compulsory, there is need look at extending its scope to include pre-primary education (which is not there in all states).

Measures taken in India towards increasing Literacy rate

• The Constitution of India recognizes the importance of education for all. Therefore, it lays down several provisions to ensure proper and effective implementation of educational rights in the country, which include:
  ∗ Education of Minorities: Article 30 of the Indian Constitution gives all minorities the right to establish and administer institutions of their
  own choice
  ∗ Free and Compulsory Education: The Constitution of India (u/a 41, 45 and 46 of the Directive Principles of State Policy) instructs the state to ensure that all citizens receive free education
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
  ∗ The program was launched in 2001, and it aims to universalise education and improves its quality by time-bound implementation strategy and context-specific planning. It includes children from all social classes
• Midday Meal Scheme
  ∗ This plan was launched in 1995 to provide mid-day meals to children studying in primary class. The main objective of creating this scheme was to eliminate classroom hunger of children and to increase attendance and enrolment of children at schools
• The Right to Education (RTE) Act was enacted in 2009, and this Act made education for every child between 6 and 14 years a fundamental right
• The National Education Policy 2020, aims to achieve 100% youth and adult literacy.

Hence, option (a) was the correct answer. As per Census 2011, the ascending order of literacy rate of these States are as follows: Bihar (61.8%), Rajasthan (66.1%), Uttar Pradesh (67.7%) and Madhya Pradesh (69.3%).