Illiteracy costs Indian economy around $53 billion annually: Report

NAGPUR: Illiteracy is costing the Indian economy around $53 billion annually, according to a research report presented at the World Literacy Summit (WLS) held last week in UK’s Oxford University. The report titled ‘Economic Cost and Social Impact of Illiteracy’ covers multiple countries and has pegged the annual loss to global economy due to illiteracy at a whopping $1 trillion.
Andrew Kay, co-author of the report and CEO of World Literacy Foundation, said, “Reduced income earning capacity and social costs are the main reason why illiteracy is costing the Indian economy each year. As a community of literacy experts, we face significant challenges as the early data shows a drop in literacy rates post-pandemic.”
In the report, India’s data is compiled under the ‘emerging countries’ category, which also includes China. The WLS report states that China loses around $135 billion dollars annually due to illiteracy.
The report also claims that 33.9% of people in India have low-level literacy skills, which they are unable to convert into real social and economic gains.
“Functional illiteracy means a person may be able to read and write simple words, but cannot apply these skills to tasks such as reading a medicine label, balancing a chequebook, or filling out a job application. Behind the numbers are the millions of people who live in poverty due to the simple fact that they are illiterate,” states the report’s summary section.
The report adds that “in India approximately 475 million people struggle to read, write, and hold basic numeracy skills”. WLS hosted literacy experts from over 80 countries. The report presented during the summit says its purpose “is to highlight the economic and social cost of illiteracy to the global economy”.
The report’s authors say countries which are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED), spend an average of 4.6% of their GDP on educational institutions at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
The authors sampled studies from all countries mentioned in the report based on UNESCO’s mathematical formula for calculating the economic impact of illiteracy. “This report assumes that illiteracy costs a developed nation 2% of its GDP, an emerging economy 1.2% of GDP, and a developing country 0.5% of GDP,” the authors said.
The report says a multi-pronged approach is needed to solve the problem, which include adult literacy programmes, incentives for students to remain in school, training of teachers etc.