A REPORT released earlier this month by the Ministry of Education said Myanmar is on track to achieve 100 percent adult literacy by 2015.

The report, which was released on September 8 to coincide with International Literacy Day, said that this year the country has reached a literacy rate of 94.75pc among residents over 15 years old, one of the highest rates in the Asia-Pacific region.

At a ceremony to mark International Literacy Day in Nay Pyi Taw, the Minister of Education, Dr Chan Nyein, praised the country’s high literacy rate as a “prestige factor for national pride."

He also made the claim that the literacy rate “reflected the living and economic standards of the citizens”.

According to the ministry, Myanmar’s national literacy rate before 1886 was 85pc, a figure that inexplicably plummeted to 28pc in 1901 under the British colonial rule.

Following independence the government instituted a public literacy campaign. With the enactment of the Public Education Act in 1964, which introduced basic programs for reading and writing, the nationwide literacy rate rose from 35 to 57pc up to the early 1980s, the report said.

During this time six states and divisions achieved 100pc literacy, earning the campaign the Mohammad Reza Pahalve Prize, an international literacy prize awarded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), in 1971.

Continuing efforts since the 1980s have boosted the nationwide literacy rate beyond 90pc, according to the ministry report.