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4.7 District wise analysis of Kerala’s literacy rate shows that Pathanamthitta district (96.95%) SOCIAL SERVICE
has the highest literacy rate in the state followed by Kottayam (96.42%) and Alappuzha (96.27%)
districts. Palakkad district has the lowest literacy rate in the state (88.51%). The low rate of literacy
of the Palakkad district may be due to the prevalence of substantial percentage of SC and ST
population in the district. 11.01% of the ST population in the State is residing in the district. (The
share of ST population in the district population is 1.67%). It may also be noted that the ST population
in Palakkad is having the lowest literacy rate (57.63%). Literacy rate by sex for districts in 2002 and
2014 are given in Appendix 4.2.

4.8 Kerala State Literacy Mission is implementing the literacy and equivalency programmes by
appointing ‘Preraks’(representatives of centre for continuing education). Details of the number of
people benefited from Equivalency programme of Literacy Mission from 2004-05 to 2013-14 are
given in Appendix 4.3.

Right to Education Act

4.9 The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which represents
the consequential legislation envisaged under Article 21-A, means that every child has a right to full
time elementary education of satisfactory and equitable quality in a formal school which satisfies
certain essential norms and standards. Article 21-A and the RTE Act came into effect on 1 April 2010.
This Act gives every child the right to quality elementary education. More details on the subject are
available in http://mhrd.gov.in/rte

Elementary Education

4.10 There were 12626 schools in Kerala during 2013-14. Out of these 4619(36.58%) were
government schools, 7147(56.61%) aided schools and 860(6.81%) unaided schools. Compared to
government upper primary and high schools more number of lower primary schools are functioning
under government sector. Aided schools outnumber government schools in all sections.

Fig 4.1
Management wise share of schools in the State

6.81 Government schools
36.58 Aided schools
Un aided schools
56.61

Economic Review 2014