Kerala’s 100 per cent literacy myth has been busted. About 2.2 lakh people belonging to the scheduled castes in the state are illiterate, it has been revealed.
This comes up to 9.5 per cent of the Dalit population.
The figures were part of one of the main findings in the provisional data prepared by the Kerala Institute of Local Administration as part of a study on scheduled caste habitat and families.
Shockingly, the study also suggests that illiteracy among scheduled caste was not decreasing, but increasing.
The number of illiterates among children of the age groups five and nine among dalits is 27,355. Illiterates among children in the age group of 10 and 14 are 454. In the age group, 15 and 24 the number is 2,045.
The study also finds 66 per cent of the scheduled caste population is below the poverty line category.
The analysis also finds that landlessness is another major problem faced by scheduled castes. The 14.5 lakh scheduled castes living in various colonies in the state together only own 29,000 acre. The irony was that 3.4 lakh scheduled caste families live in this 29,000 acre land.
The study also finds that 70,000 scheduled caste families in the State are landless. Another 2.5 lakh families live in one room houses.