TEHRAN – The literacy rate difference between men and women has declined from 26 percent before the 1979 Islamic Revolution to 2.8 percent, head of the Literacy Movement Organization has stated.

The average literacy rate in the age group of 10 to 49 has reached 96 percent, IRNA quoted Shapour Mohammadzadeh as saying on Sunday.

The literacy rate in some provinces such as Tehran, Isfahan, Mazandaran, Yazd, and Semnan has reached up to 98 percent, but in some other provinces such as Sistan-Baluchestan, the rate is 83 percent, which is lower than the national average, he said.

According to the latest census, the literacy rate is 96.2 percent, which increases by 0.5 percent every year, he also noted.

Mohammadzadeh, stating that the distribution of illiteracy in the provinces is very high, added that in some provinces, one illiterate can be found every 20 square kilometers because the number of illiterates has decreased.

“It is not yet possible to say that the illiteracy rate in any province has reached zero,” he said.

Nearly 1.8 percent of the population in any country are exceptional children or people with lower Intelligence Quotient (IQ), on the other hand, eight-tenths of the people have learning disabilities and eventually can only be trained, he stated.

He went on to conclude that some 50 percent of the activities of the Literacy Movement Organization is focused on literacy empowerment so that there is no return to illiteracy.

FB/MG