One-third primary school graduates lack basic literacy skills

Half of the population over the age of 11 are not literate and, at the current rate of progress, it would take 44 years to have a fully literate population over the age of 11, said the report. The Education Watch Report 2016 was unveiled yesterday by the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE) Bangladesh in association with Education Watch at the Rural Development Engineering Centre auditorium in Dhaka. Manzoor Ahmed,  a reviewer of the Education Watch Report, said: “35.6% of primary school graduates in 2002 did not possess literacy skills. Sadly, this number has only decreased to 32.2% this year.” The report said that the literacy rate for the population over the age of 11 increased from 41.4% in 2002 to 51.3 % in 2016 – an average of 0.7% per year. For the population over the age of 15, the literacy rate for 2002 was 38.8% and it increased to 47.3% in 2016.