With a literacy rate of 96.2%, Kerala maintained its position as the most literate state in India, followed by the national capital Delhi (89%) and Uttarakhand (87.6). Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh fared the worst with its literacy rate at 66.4%. The data for 2017-18 was revealed by a report on education released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

The gap between male and female literacy is the thinnest in Kerala at just 2.2% points. This is far less than the national average of 14.4% points with male literacy at 84.7% and female literacy at 70.3%. The state also recorded the lowest gap between urban and rural literacy rates with 1.9 percentage points.

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The worst in this regard are the states of Telangana, where urban literacy is 23.4 percentage points higher than rural literacy, and Andhra Pradesh, where the difference is 19.2 percentage points. The difference between urban male literacy and rural female literacy is an alarming 27.2 percentage points at the national level.

Generally, states with relatively low literacy rates also show the highest gender gap. But that is not always true, as suggested by the report. Andhra Pradesh, for instance, has a gap between male and female literacy rates of only 13.9 percentage points, while Rajasthan (23.2), Bihar (19.2) and UP (18.4) have pronounced gaps despite having better overall literacy rates.