India’s official goal for education since independence in 1947 has been to ensure compulsory education for all up to age 14. A lack of money and effort put into primary education, however, has hampered the achievement of that goal. At independence 25 percent of males and 8 percent of females were literate. In 2001 those figures had been raised to 80 percent of males and 66 percent of females—73 percent of the overall population. The government invests comparatively more in secondary and tertiary schools, particularly colleges and universities. There was no serious political demand for primary education until the 1990s, when a grassroots movement arose to organize volunteers and conduct campaigns for universal adult literacy.