A peek into literacy in India: Statistical Learning with R

In this post I take a peek into the literacy landscape across India as a whole using R language. The dataset from Open Government Data (OGD) platform India was used for this purpose. This data is based on the 2011 census. The XL sheets for the states were downloaded for data for each state. The Union Territories were not included in the analysis.

A thin slice of the data from each data set was taken from the data for each individual state (Note: This could also have been done from the consolidated india.xls XL sheet which I came to know of, much later).

I calculate the following for age group

Males (%) attending education institutions = (Males attending educational institutions * 100)/ Total males
Females (%) attending education institutions = (Females attending educational institutions * 100)/ Total Females

This is then plotted as a bar chart with the age distribution. I then overlay the national average for each state over the barchart to check whether the literacy in the state is above or below the national average. The implementation in R is included below

The code and data can be forked/cloned from GitHub at india-literacy

The results based on the analysis is given below.

Kerala is clearly the top ranker with the literacy rates for both males and females well above the average
The states with above average literacy are – Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttarakhand
The states with just about average literacy – Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal
The states with below average literacy – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Rajasthan

A brief implementation of the basic code in R is shown bwelow

# Read the Arunachal Pradhesh literacy related data arunachal = read.csv("arunachal.csv") # Create as a matrix arunachalmat = as.matrix(arunachal) arunachalTotal = arunachalmat[2:19,7:28] # Take transpose as this is necessary for plotting bar charts arunachalmat = t(arunachalTotal) # Set the scipen option to format the y axis (otherwise prints as e^05 etc.) getOption("scipen") opt <- options("scipen" = 20) getOption("scipen") #Create a vector of total Males & Females arunachalTotalM = arunachalmat[3,] arunachalTotalF = arunachalmat[4,] #Create a vector of males & females attending education institution arunachalM = arunachalmat[6,] arunachalF = arunachalmat[7,] #Calculate percent of males attending education of total arunachalpercentM = round(as.numeric(arunachalM) *100/as.numeric(arunachalTotalM),1) barplot(arunachalpercentM,names.arg=arunachalmat[1,],main ="Percentage males attending educational institutions in Arunachal Pradesh", xlab = "Age", ylab= "Percentage",ylim = c(0,100), col ="lightblue", legend= c("Males")) points(age,indiapercentM,pch=15) lines(age,indiapercentM,col="red",pch=20,lty=2,lwd=3) legend( x="bottomright", legend=c("National average"), col=c("red"), bty="n" , lwd=1, lty=c(2), pch=c(15) ) #Calculate percent of females attending education of total arunachalpercentF = round(as.numeric(arunachalF) *100/as.numeric(arunachalTotalF),1) barplot(arunachalpercentF,names.arg=arunachalmat[1,],main ="Percentage females attending educational institutions in Arunachal Pradesh ", xlab = "Age", ylab= "Percentage", ylim = c(0,100), col ="lightblue", legend= c("Females")) points(age,indiapercentF,pch=15) lines(age,indiapercentF,col="red",pch=20,lty=2,lwd=3) legend( x="bottomright", legend=c("National average"), col=c("red"), bty="n" , lwd=1, lty=c(2), pch=c(15) )

A) Overall plot for India

a) India – Males

b) India – females

The plots for each individual state is given below

1) Literacy in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is slightly over the national average. The women seem to do marginally better than the males

a) Tamil Nadu – males

b) Tamil Nadu – females

2) Literacy in Uttar Pradesh

UP is slightly below the national average. Women are comparatively below men here

a) Uttar Pradesh – males

b) Uttar Pradesh – females

3) Literacy in Bihar

Bihar is well below the national average for both men and women

a) Bihar – males

b) Bihar – females

4. Literacy in Kerala

Kerala is the winner all the way in literacy with almost 100% literacy across all age groups

a) Kerala – males

b) Kerala -females

5. Literacy in Andhra Pradesh

AP just meets the national average for literacy.

a) Andhra Pradesh – males

b) Andhra Pradesh – females

6. Literacy in Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh is below average for most of the age groups

a) Arunachal Pradesh – males

b) Arunachal Pradesh – females

7. Literacy in Assam

Assam is below national average

a) Assam – males

b) Assam – females

8. Literacy in Chattisgarh

Chattisgarh is on par with the national average for both men and women

a) Chattisgarh – males

b) Chattisgarh – females

9. Literacy in Gujarat

Gujarat is just about average

a) Gujarat – males

b) Gujarat – females

10. Literacy in Haryana

Haryana is slightly above average

a) Haryana – males

b) Haryana – females

11. Literacy in Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is cool and above average.

a) Himachal Pradesh – males

b) Himachal Pradesh – females

12. Literacy in Jammu and Kashmir

J & K is marginally below average

a) Jammu and Kashmir – males

b) Jammu and Kashmir – females

13. Literacy in Jharkhand

Jharkhand is some ways below average

a) Jharkhand – males

b) Jharkhand – females

14. Literacy in Karnataka

Karnataka is on average for men. Womem seem to do better than men here

a) Karnataka – males

b) Karnataka – females

15. Literacy in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh meets the national average

a) Madhya Pradesh – males

b) Madhya Pradesh – females

16. Literacy in Maharashtra

Maharashtra is front-runner in literacy

a) Maharashtra – females

b) Maharastra – females

17. Literacy in Odisha

Odisha meets national average

a) Odisha – males

b) Odisha – females

18. Literacy in Punjab

Punjab is marginally above average with women doing even better

a) Punjab – males

b) Punjab – females

19. Literacy in Rajasthan

Rajasthan is average for males and below average for females

a) Rajasthan – males

b) Rajasthan – females

20. Literacy in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand rocks and is above average

a) Uttarakhand – males

b) Uttarakhand – females

21. Literacy in West Bengal

West Bengal just about meets the national average.

a) West Bengal – males

b) West Bengal – females

The code can be cloned/forked from GitHub india-literacy. I have done my analysis on the overall data. The data is further sub-divided across districts in each state and further into urban and rural. Many different ways of analysing are possible. One method is shown here

Conclusion

Kerala is clearly head and shoulders above all states when it comes to literacy
Many states are above average. They are Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttarakhand
States with average literacy are – Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal
States which fall below the national average are – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Rajasthan