Sunsari has been declared as the 45th fully-literate district of the country.
Province-1 Chief Minister Sherdhan Rai made this announcement at a program organized here on Tuesday. On the occasion, he unveiled Literacy Marker constructed at the premises of the District Education Office, Sunsari.
Addressing the program, Chief Minister Rai said that education played a pivotal role for the country's overall development.
It was announced on the occasion that Sunsari district has met all the criteria required for declaring any district as the 'district achieving full literacy'. Sunsari is the latest district to be declared so out of the 77 districts in the country.
The District Education Office stated that 95 per cent of the total population of the district belonging to the age group 16 to 60 years have achieved full literacy, thereby qualifying the district to be declared as the 'fully-literate district'.
The percentage of literate people in the district is 95.40.
Also speaking in the program, Province-1 Minister for Social Development Jeevan Bahadur Ghimire said the goal of development and prosperity could only be met with the improvement of the health and education of the people.
Meanwhile, the locals have objected to the declaration of Sunsari as a fully-literate district saying the announcement was made without meeting all the prerequisites.
They charged that the district was declared fully-literate district only to 'gobble up' the budget that the government has set aside for this purpose.
"The district has not met the criteria to be declared as fully-literate district. It is a sham. A person from our area who has been attending the literacy classes conducted in our area since the last five years cannot write even his name," Hari Narayan Mehta of local Devangunj said.
Critics of the declaration said that only 68 percent of the population of the 16-60 age group in the district is literate. The 95 percent literacy is only in paper, they argued.
