Bangladesh’s literacy rate rises to 74 percent, poverty down by 5.6 percent: Survey

12 April 2023

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UNB, Dhaka :

The latest household survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows that the literacy rate in Bangladesh has increased to 74 percent.

According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022, the literacy rate was 65.6 percent in 2016 and 57.91 percent in 2010, said the survey report, which was published on Wednesday.

People aged above seven years were included in determining the literacy rate.

The BBS conducted the survey among 14,400 households from January 1 to December 31, 2022.

Currently (2022) the average monthly expenditure of a family in the country is TK 31500, in 2016 it was Tk15715. As a result, the cost has doubled in a span of six years.

Due to various programmes taken by the government to alleviate poverty, the rate of poor and destitute people in the country has decreased. The poor population in the country is 18.7 percent. Besides, the poverty rate has decreased to 5.6 percent.

According to 2016 statistics, the poor population in the country was 24.3 percent.

That year the ultra-poor population was 12.9 percent. As a result, the number of poor people in the country has decreased by 5.6 percent in a span of seven years.

At the same time, the ultra-poor population decreased by 7.3 percent.

The poverty rate is 20.5 percent in rural towns and 14.7 percent in urban areas.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), a government agency working to determine the poverty rate, released such data at a function in the BBS Auditorium on Wednesday (April 12).

Planning Minister MA Mannan, State Minister Dr. Shamsul Alam and other officials were present.

The agency had released its latest ‘Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES)’ in 2016.