AP Literacy Rate Soars to 82.1% — Lokesh Eyes 100% Literacy by 2027

Andhra Pradesh's literacy rate has climbed to 82.1 per cent, Education and IT Minister Nara Lokesh said on Wednesday, as the state pushes to achieve full literacy within the next year.

According to figures shared by the minister, Andhra Pradesh's literacy rate has increased from 72.6 per cent in 2024 to 82.1 per cent in 2026, a rise of 9.5 percentage points in two years. Officials said the jump was driven largely by the Akshara Andhra programme, the state's flagship adult-literacy initiative, with around 25 lakh people becoming literate under the scheme since it was launched by the NDA government.

The turnaround is notable given where the state stood just two years ago. Andhra Pradesh had a literacy rate of 72.6 per cent in 2024, trailing even Bihar's 74.3 per cent at the time. Officials told the minister that the latest 82.1 per cent figure has now taken the state above the national average of 80.9 per cent, a reversal that Lokesh described as one of the sharpest literacy gains recorded by any state in recent years.

The road to 100% literacy

Lokesh has now set September 2027 as the deadline for the state to achieve complete literacy. Per the government's phased roadmap, officials plan to make another 25 lakh people literate by March 2027, followed by the remaining 27 lakh by September 2027 — covering roughly 52 lakh people over the next year.

To hit that target, the minister has directed officials to treat Akshara Andhra as a mass movement rather than a routine department scheme, calling for coordination across departments and asking that MLAs and local public representatives be drawn into the campaign to widen awareness and boost enrolment. The programme itself is being run as a coordinated effort involving 11 government departments.

The Centre has also taken note of the state's progress, with officials informing the minister that the Centre had appreciated Andhra Pradesh's roughly 10-percentage-point rise in literacy within a single year.

School enrolment and attendance in focus

Alongside the adult literacy push, Lokesh reviewed the state's school education indicators. Officials flagged 1,64,821 children currently identified as out of school, with school education director Tamim Ansariya reporting that 33,000 out-of-school children had already been enrolled this year. The minister directed that every school-age child be tracked and brought into the system.

On staffing and participation, the review found that teacher attendance had risen to 98.97 per cent, while student attendance stood at 85.41 per cent. Lokesh also called for 100 per cent integration of APAAR IDs for Intermediate students and took stock of preparations for the Class 10 board exams and the Special TET for in-service teachers.

Other announcements

The minister used the review meeting to flag a few other initiatives: plans to set up autism centres at 125 locations across the state, a directive that mid-day meal quality see no compromise, and specialised AI-tool training for teachers under the AI Samarth initiative. Separately, officials said 192 teachers will be felicitated in Vijayawada on September 5 to mark Teachers' Day.

With the literacy rate now ahead of the national average and a firm 2027 deadline in place, the coming months are expected to see an intensified push — spanning adult literacy drives, school enrolment tracking, and department-wide coordination — as the state works toward its goal of 100 per cent literacy.