Bridging the Divide: An Analysis of Indian Education :: Essays Papers

Bridging the Divide An Analysis of Indian pedagogicsIntroductionEducational levels receive always been regarded as key indicators, non just of economic development, but of social well being. For this reason, literacy rates atomic number 18 of interest to development economists and social activists alike. Literacy is in fact, a component of the serviceman Development Indicator, suggesting that income and mortality alone cannot capture the essential quality of purport that a person enjoys. Yet statistics on overall literacy rates are deceiving, for they do not reflect the social inequities which determine who receives the opportunity to travel literate and who does not. India, the country of focus for this paper, provides an excellent example of the complex record of literacy. Development scholars have often cited India as an example of progress in the field of education, as in the past five decades study literacy levels have almost tripled, from 18.33% in 1951 to 52.2% in 2001. However this statistic masks the fact that the growth is in the scratch place attributable to increases in male literacy (from 27% to over 65% during the same(p) time span). While womens literacy rates have improved, by the put to work of the century, over 60% of Indian women remained illiterate. While the Indian state issued unhomogeneous statements asserting its commitment to female education. any progress in the nation has only been made very recently when, with the growth of nongovernmental organizations (henceforth NGOs) working in the field of non-formal womens schooling, a lot of work has been done on identifying barriers to female education in India. The purpose of this paper is not to combine the work done by these NGOs. Instead, I wish to outline a framework in which to understand the problems women construction in attaining literacy, in wander to devise progressive policies and more effectively implement them.In the first part of this paper, I attempt to e xplain the underlying similarities between umpteen impediments to female education for pathetic rural and urban communities. I draw and quarter how different social contexts mold the manifestations of these problems, but not the issues themselves. Many difficulties women face must be therefore be understood as national problems, but require specific understanding in order to channelise the particular forms those issues take in local communities.While all poor Indian women face challenges in receiving an education, some female populations are specially marginalized. Therefore, in the next part of my analysis, I focus on the reasons for urban-rural gaps in the literacy rates between Indian women, taking the case of lower-caste poor women vitality in North Indian villages.