Jugglery with literacy rate

The literacy rate in Bangladesh stands at 65 percent, according to primary and mass education minister Mostafizur Rahman.

This is six percent less than what has been previously claimed, raising questions about whether this means a drop in literacy or just a fallout of statistical jugglery.

Because, a year ago the same ministry, with a different minister at its helm, claimed that the country's literacy rate stood at 71 percent.

At a media briefing on Sunday ahead of the International Literacy Day, Rahman came up with the figures that appeared quite muddled.

According to the 5th Population and Housing Census 2011, Bangladesh's population stands at 152 million plus.

If the minister's claim of 65 percent literacy rate is right, then the number of illiterates stand at 53.341 million, which is more than double what was claimed by Rahman on Sunday.

Rahman, however, was not clear about the basis for his statistics.

His predecessor also had the habit of coming up with different statistics from time to time.

In 2013, the then minister Afsarul Amin had claimed that the literacy rate stood at 71 percent.

According to a 2010 survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the literacy rate of Bangladesh is 59.82 percent.

Ministers and government officials have often come up with different figures of literacy every year since 2010.

In September last year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government would take the literacy rate up to a hundred percent if elected again.

Minister Rahman admitted on Sunday that they were falling behind that target by 2014.

"The target was set, but it will not be achieved. A lot of things are yet to be done," he told the media briefing.

The government is taking a raft of measures to make the 'illiterate' 25 million people literate.

Rahman, however, evaded an absolute figure of enrolled students in Bangladesh, but claimed it was 'very close to hundred percent'.

"What's the problem if the literacy rate is 66 percent instead of 65 percent? It is not something disappointing," he said at the briefing.

However, the minister was mum on the basis for his statistics of 250 million people being illiterate.

Education Secretary Kazi Akhtar Hossain came to his rescue at the briefing.

"Literacy rate may be more than 65-66 percent. You cannot find an illiterate person even in the slums," he said adding he ‘believed’ the literacy rate was 'almost 70 percent'.