Missing past deadlines, Bangladesh targets to gain full adult literacy by 2025

The government has continued to extend the time to achieve 100% adult literacy as years went by but it made little progress towards the goal. 

Adult literacy defined by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) as the ability to write a letter for communication has progressed to be 75.6% until last year, only 3.3 percentage points higher than in 2016, according to the "Sample Vital Registration System 2020" report released by the BBS last month.  

There was a political pledge to eliminate adult illiteracy by 2014 and then by 2020. Now, the government in its eighth five-year plan set the target to achieve full adult literacy by 2025.  

In 1997, the literacy rate among adults – 15 years and above – was 51.2%. In the five-year plan released that year, the government for the first time promised to attain 80% adult literacy by 2002.

Rather, the literacy rate dropped to 49.6% in 2002. 

Literacy is one of the most fundamental elements of education and the government established an implementing agency named "Bureau of Non-Formal Education" in 1991. And literacy and education are the most important preconditions for social and economic development. 

Time series of literacy shows that the adult literacy rate which was 52.8% in 2000 rose to 58.6% in 2010 and continued to move upward to 75.6% in 2020.

That means adult literacy increased by 22.8 percentage points in two decades while 24.4% of the adult population are yet to gain literacy. 

The slow progress makes it highly unlikely that Bangladesh will see full literacy by 2025. 

Pirojpur has the highest literacy rate, not Dhaka 

The latest BBS report has shown that Pirojpur district has the highest literacy rate -- 88.7% -- in Bangladesh, followed by Barguna (87.6%) and Barishal (87.4%). 

The rate is around 86% and 84% in Jhalokathi and Bagerhat, whereas Dhaka has 83% adult literacy. 

With a 53.6% literacy rate, Bandarban is the district with the least adult literacy in Bangladesh. 

Males are more literate than females

The latest statistics show that adult literacy rates for both males and females have been increasing slowly but steadily.

Males are more literate than females both at the divisional and national levels. 

The national level of literacy rate for male adults stood at 78.2%, whereas for females at 73%.

The 2020 report highlighted that illiteracy is more prevalent in Mymensingh division where about 25% of the males and 29% of the females have never gone to school.

As expected, the literacy rate is significantly higher among the urban population (82.8%) than in the rural population (69.8%).