Literacy as a Parameter for Development Case Study of East African Countries Special Reference: Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti

??????????? Education is one of the indices of development. While assessing the HDI ranking of countries, education is considered as one of the indices of HDI calculation. Most of the low HDI ranking countries have low literacy level. Education level determines the knowledge and efficiency of human beings. Most of the East African countries have low literacy level, particularly Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti have lowest literacy level. As a result the HDI ranking of these four countries is also very low. Though the efforts are made to enhance the literacy level still it is quite low in these countries.??????????? The article attempted to bring out the education scenario of these four countries. Various programmes launched to increase enrollment ratio and encourage higher education. The paper depicts the problems of education in these countries.