Mizoram scores high on literacy rate

Mizoram is inching closer towards achieving its dream of becoming India's most literate state, it attained a rate of 90.27% in March, second only to Kerala's 90.9%.

Mizoram is inching closer towards achieving its dream of becoming India's most literate state, it attained a rate of 90.27 percent in March, second only to Kerala's 90.9 percent.

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"Mizoram is making concerted efforts to become number one in the country during the current fiscal," said R. Lalthangliana, the school education minister of this northeastern state.

"The desire to be the most literate state has acquired the dimension of a mass movement with churches, NGOs and student bodies cooperating with the government in the endeavour," Lalthangliana told IANS.

"The improvement in literacy is due to not only the elementary education system but also the efforts put in by the adult education wing of the school education department and cooperation from churches, NGOs and citizens."

However, the three southern districts of Lunglei, Saiha and Lawngtlai have achieved very low rates compared to those in northern and central Mizoram, a state with a population of less than a million of which nearly 87 percent practice Christianity.

Priority has been given to these districts to ensure that they do not hold us back in our drive," Lalthangliana said. "It's only a matter of less than one percent and we hope to achieve the feat this fiscal year," he said.