VP Venkaiah Naidu calls for efforts to make India 100% literate

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today called for collective efforts by all stakeholders to make India 100 percent literate in the near future.

Inaugurating the Centenary celebrations of National College at Tiruchirappalli, in Tamil Nadu today, the Vice President has expressed disappointment over the fact that India still has 18-20% illiterate population, even after 70 years of independence. He has called for stepping up the pace of literacy campaigns, especially those that have an impact on adult literacy.

Expressing his concern that none of the premier Indian Universities figured



in the top 300 global list of institutions, Mr. Naidu said that though India was home to premier institutions like IISc, IIT, IIM, only 56 institutions were featured in the 500 universities that made it to the ‘Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020’.

Pointing out that education was the key to fast-tracking development while ensuring social justice and equal opportunities to all, the Vice President called for enhancing investment in education from the current 4.6 percent of GDP to 6 percent of GDP as mandated by the NITI Aayog.