amaravati people in andhra pradesh are surprised at the lowest literacy rate of 64 per cent attributed to the state by the national statistical office nso for the year 201718i highly doubt that andhra pradesh could fare so badly in terms of literacy rate sai deepak a native of guntur who lives in hyderabad told iansaccording to the nso survey the southern state is rated lowest in the country below bihar rajasthan jharkhand odisha chhattisgarh and madhya pradesht suguna rao a retired teacher from an aided school in west godavari district in coastal ap neither agreed nor disagreed with nsos estimationit seems aps literacy rate is 64 per cent said rao without commenting much but did not look convincedechoing rao bhimavaram resident pradeep an msc fisheries graduate said he also cannot say much about this development i am not sure said pradeepbut raos wife td vakyamani also a retired teacher from a government school said nsos estimation could be correctaps literacy rate for males is estimated to be 734 per cent and for females 595 per cent a disparity of 139 percentage points between the gendersthough rated lowest in overall literacy rate the gap between men and women is not the worst and better than rajasthan 232 per cent uttar pradesh 184 per cent jharkhand 183 per cent and otherssagnik choudhary a retail professional who studied in hyderabad when andhra pradesh was united is not convinced with literacy rate variance between men and womenirrespective of nso adjudicating ap as the lowest literate state several towns and a few cities in the state are major educational hubs drawing thousands of students for studiesvijayawada guntur nellore bhimavaram kakinada vishakapatnam rajamundry kurnool and others are known for famous schools intermediate junior colleges and several engineering collegessome of the private schools such as sri chaitany and naraya have expanded their branches all over the country originating from the stateandhra pradesh and telangana both the telugu states send a sizeable number of students every year to the indian institutes of technology iits premier technical schools in indiaap is also known for a high number of students who migrate to the us for higher studies