Mumbai: A recent survey conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) has revealed that more than 30 percent of the Indian youth is illiterate and has a very small chance of entering the organized job market.

The survey was conducted in 593 districts across the country. The findings of the survey mean that one out of three young citizens in India is an illiterate.

The research says that the "illiteracy" rate for 27 districts is two out of three young people and in 182 districts, the figure stands at around 35-50 percent. The female illiteracy rate is nearly double than the male illiteracy rates and the figures are higher for rural areas as compared to the urban areas.

The survey, "Educational Attainment of Youth and Implications for Indian Labour Market" was carried out by Bino Paul GD, an associate professor at TISS. Paul in his research said that, "The demographic dividend that our Prime Minister spoke about last year may actually be a mirage."

"When we compared the years of schooling that those in the organized sector had received, we found that it was three-fold for the casual labour market. Most of the literate youth had not received schooling above class 7th and very less had opted for higher studies", Paul added.

Prof. Paul pointed also out that, "At a time when over half of the country's GDP comes from the service sector, which will soon be the major source of employment and which requires skilled manpower with high levels of education attainment, a large section of the youth will not make the grade."

The study also revealed that Kerala was better than many other states including Bihar in terms of student-teacher ratio within the classroom, number of students per class and the toilet facilities available in schools.

While in Kerala, about 87-100 percent of students continued studying after primary school, in Bihar only 42.9-82.1 percent of students could make the transition from primary to secondary education and the rest were drop-outs.

Prof. Paul highlighted that, "The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Center's flagship programme to universalize education, was not spread out evenly across the country and did not foster a thirst for life-long learning."

As per the TISS Researchers, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) should be connected with free education in order to enhance literacy rates.