Dhaka: Citing the official statistics, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman on Wednesday said the literacy rate in Bangladesh has increased to 72.3 percent, claiming it is on a gradual rise.

"According to the report on Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics 2016 of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the current literacy rate is 72.3 percent. The rate is going up gradually after the government took various programmes in this regard," he said.

But, the Mass Education Minister said, about 27.7 percent of the country's population is still illiterate and it is quite impossible to attain expected development keeping these illiterate people behind.

The minister said some 53,000 posts of teachers are currently lying vacant in the country's 64,000 primary schools.

"Of the vacant posts, about 21,000 are of headmasters while 32,000 of assistant teachers," he said while addressing a press conference at his ministry on the occasion of the International Literacy Day.

The International Literacy Day will be observed in the country, as elsewhere cross the world, on Friday with the theme: 'Literacy in a digital world'.

He said the government is implementing the Basic Literacy Project (64 districts) with its own funding under the Bureau of Non-Formal Education to provide the illiterate people with effective life skill-based literacy.

Mostafiz said the government will provide basic literacy along with life skills to 45 lakh illiterate people in 250 upazilas of 64 districts under the project.