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

Bridging the Divide: An Analysis of Indian Education Introduction: Educational levels have always been regarded as key indicators, not just of economic development, but of social well being. For this reason, literacy rates are of interest to development economists and social activists alike. Literacy is in fact, a component of the Human Development Indicator, suggesting that income and mortality alone cannot capture the essential quality of life 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 become literate and who does not. India, the country of focus for this paper, provides an excellent example of the complex nature of literacy. Development scholars have often cited India as an example of progress in the field of education, as in the past five decades national 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 mainly attributable to increases in male literacy (from 27% to over 65% during the same time span). While women’s literacy rates have improved, by the turn of the century, over 60% of Indian women remained illiterate. While the Indian state issued various statements asserting its commitment to female education. any progress in the area has only been made very recently when, with the growth of nongovernmental organizations (henceforth NGOs) working in the field of non-formal women’s schooling, a lot of work has been done on identifying barriers to female education in India. The purpose of this paper is not to synthesize the work done by these NGOs. Instead, I wish to outline a framework in which to understand the problems women face in attaining literacy, in order to devise progressive policies and more effectively implement them. In the first part of this paper, I attempt to explain the underlying similarities between many impediments to female education for poor rural and urban communities. I describe 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 address the particular forms those issues take in local communities. While all poor Indian women face challenges in receiving an education, some female populations are particularly 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 living in North Indian villages.