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Economics · Ch 12 — Human Capital Formation in India

Educational Achievements in India

12.6.2

Educational Achievements in India

A country's progress in education is judged by a few standard indicators: the adult literacy level, the primary education completion rate, and the youth literacy rate. These summary measures let us see how much the population as a whole is being educated.

Adult literacy rate measures the share of people aged 15 and above who are literate. Primary completion rate measures, as a percentage of the relevant age group, how many finish primary schooling. Youth literacy rate measures literacy among people in the 15 to 24 age group. For each indicator the data are reported separately for males and females, which brings out the gender gap in educational attainment.

Table table-4.2Table 4.2 — Educational Attainment in India: adult literacy rate, primary completion rate and youth literacy rate, male and female, 1990 to 2017-18.
Fig. table-4.2 — Table 4.2 — Educational Attainment in India: adult literacy rate, primary completion rate and youth literacy rate, male and female, 1990 to 2017-18.
Indicator1990200020112017-18
Adult literacy rate, male (per cent)61.968.47982
Adult literacy rate, female (per cent)37.945.45966
Primary completion rate, male (per cent)78859293
Primary completion rate, female (per cent)61699496

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Figure 4.6School dropouts give way to child labour: a loss to human capital — children and adults doing brick-construction manual labour at a building site.
Fig. 4.6 — School dropouts give way to child labour: a loss to human capital — children and adults doing brick-construction manual labour at a building site.

Drawn by us to help you understand the concept clearly, and verified to make sure it's accurate. For exams, practice from your NCERT textbook's own diagram.

Own-drawn recreation of NCERT Fig 4.6 …

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