Country's literacy rate has increased to 71 per cent from the earlier figure of 46 per cent in 2009.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal revealed the statistics in parliament on Thursday.
While replying to a question from treasury bench lawmaker AKM Zahangir Hossain (Patuakhali-3), he said, "The literacy rate was 46.15 per cent on January 1, 2009 (Statistical Year Book Bangladesh 2009). Now the literacy rate is 71 per cent (Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2016)."
According to the statistics presented by the minister, literacy rate among men is 73 per cent while 68.9 per cent among women.
While replying to another starred question from Jatiya Party lawmaker Nurul Islam Milon (Comilla-8), the minister said the poverty rate has declined to 22.3 per cent and the number of people who are living under poverty line in the country is 35,658,000.
According to UNB, Mr Kamal said the main goal of the seventh five-year plan is alleviating poverty rapidly and bringing down the extreme poverty rate to 8.9 per cent by 2020.