ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Tripura's Tryst with Literacy GORKY CHAKRABORTY, SUBHANIL CHOWDHURY Vol. 48, Issue No. 42, 19 Oct, 2013 Subhanil Chowdhury (
[email protected]) and Gorky Chakraborty (
[email protected]) teach at the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata Tripura’s achievement in ensuring near full literacy is a consequence of initiatives taken at the level of governance, peoples’ participation and political will. As the public discourse today scrutinises the “development model” of the state of Gujarat ever so furiously, a significant milestone achieved by a small state in the much ignored North-East curiously has been given little coverage to. Tripura has become the most literate state in the country overtaking Kerala (itself, the owner of another “model” and a success story in social development). Manik Sarkar, the Chief Minister of Tripura in a press conference stated that as on date the literacy rate in the state was 94.65%. He also pointed out that Tripura is still short of attaining full literacy which the government will try and achieve soon (The Hindu, 9 September 2013). This achievement of Tripura shows how initiatives at the level of governance, peoples’ participation and political will can ensure education for all. Improvement in Literacy The remarkable improvement of Tripura in literacy is shown in the following table, along with other north-eastern states (and others that have been in the limelight recently). Table 1: Literacy Rates in Tripura and Other States State 1991 2001 2011 Tripura 60.44 73.19 87.75 Arunachal 41.59 54.34 66.95 Pradesh Nagaland 61.65 66.59 80.11 Manipur 59.89 70.53 79.85 Mizoram 82.26 88.80 91.58 Meghalaya 49.1 62.56 75.48 Assam 52.89 63.25 73.18 Kerala 89.81 90.86 93.91 Gujarat 61.29 69.14 79.31 ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Source: Economic Survey, Government of India, 2012-13 Table 1 shows that Tripura has increased its literacy rate by around 27 percentage points between 1991 and 2011.