IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION IN RURAL INDIA: AND RELATED SCHEMES FOR WOMEN AND YOUTH

Relevance:

Sociology:

• Social Changes in India
• Education and social change
• Illiteracy and disparities in education.

G.S paper II: Governance: Education

Introduction:

• The vision of a modern India, free from poverty, rests overwhelmingly on the growth and development of rural India.
• The education for children and skill training for adults is ultimately the only way to help rural Indians escape the poverty trap they find themselves in and make them self-reliant.

Challenge in the educational sector:

Decreasing enrolment observed in higher education:

• Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) was 56.2 percent at the senior secondary level as compared to 99.2 percent at the primary level.
  • GER denotes enrolment as a percent of the population of the corresponding age group.
• According to the 2018-19 all-India survey on higher education (AUSHE), GER in higher education in India is 26.3 percent, which is calculated for the 18-23 years of age group.

School drop-outs:

• The Right to Education Act, 2009 has been successful in achieving near-universal enrolment in elementary education, however, retaining children remains a challenge for the schooling system.

Socially disadvantaged classes:

• The decline in GER is higher for certain socio-economically disadvantaged groups, based on gender identities (female, transgender persons), socio-cultural identities (scheduled castes, scheduled tribes), geographical identities (students from small villages and small towns), socio-economic identities (migrant communities and low-income household), and disabilities.

Regional inequality:

• More than 12 percent of rural households in India did not have secondary schools within 5 km whereas in urban areas this percentage is less than one percent.
• According to the 2018-19 data, 0.53 percent of colleges are located in rural areas.

Inadequate resource allocation:

• The current public (Central Government and State Governments) expenditure on education in India has been around 4.43 percent of GDP (Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure 2017-18).
• This is low comparable to similarly placed economies.

Impact of poor education on society and economy:

• Incomplete and poor quality education translates into a workforce that is unable to find remunerative work and survives on low paid, unstable jobs. This will have a detrimental impact on not only the economy but will have a social impact as well.

Initiatives in the Education Sector:

Samagra Shiksha Scheme:

• The Government of India has launched Samagra Shiksha — an integrated scheme for school education with effect from 2018-19. It envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels and subsumes the three erstwhile centrally sponsored schemes—Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
• Bridging gender and social category gaps at all levels of school education is one of the major objectives of the scheme. It reaches out to girls and children belonging to SCs, STs, minority communities and transgender. The scheme also gives attention to urban deprived children, children affected by periodic migration and children living in remote and scattered habitation.
• Acknowledging that issues such as lack of toilets in schools and unavailability of schools within a short distance play a big role in school dropouts, especially among girls, the scheme supports states for strengthening of school infrastructure including in rural areas. The scheme provides for the infrastructural strengthening of existing government schools based on the gaps determined by the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).
• Under Samagra Shiksha, various interventions have been targeted to promote education, which include opening of schools in the neighbourhood, provision of free text-books up to Class VIII, uniforms to all girls and SC, ST, BPL boys up to class VIII, provision of gender segregated toilets in all schools, teachers’ sensitisation programmes to promote girls’ participation, construction of residential quarters for teachers in remote/hilly areas/in areas with difficult terrain.
• There is a provision for twinning of schools under which well-functioning private or government schools in urban or semi-urban areas are linked with schools located in rural areas for interaction and exchange of experience.
• Vocational skills training is also a major component under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme:

• Meritorious students belonging to the economically weaker sections can avail the benefit of scholarships under the National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme.

Jawahar Navodaya Vidalayas (JNVs):

• The main objective of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) is to provide good quality modern education — including a strong component of inculcation of values, awareness of the environment, adventure activities and physical education — to talented children predominantly from the rural areas without regard to their family’s socio-economic condition.

Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS):

• Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMR5) were introduced in 1997-96 to provide quality upper primary, secondary and senior secondary level education to Scheduled Tribe (ST) students in remote areas to enable them to access the best opportunities in education and to bring them at par with the general population.

Mid-Day Meal Scheme:

• The Mid-Day Meals Scheme is targeted at young children studying upto Class VIII. It helps in ensuring that young children from disadvantaged sections like poor, dalits, tribals, girls and children of the labour work force in schools get nutritious mid-day meals in rural areas.
• Approximately 11.59 crore children in around 11.5 lakh schools benefit daily from MDM.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas:

• Residential schools from classes VI to XII for girls belonging to disadvantaged groups such as SC, ST, OBC, Minority and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

Targetted intervention for Girls:

• Free text-books to girls up to Class VIII, uniforms to all girls up to class VIII, provision of gender segregated toilets in all schools, teachers’ sensitisation programmes to promote girls’ participation, provision for self-defence training for the girls from classes VI to XII.

Skill Training:

• The National Education Policy 2020 envisages the holistic development of learners by equipping them with key 21st-century skills. It emphasises on integration between vocational and academic streams in all schools and higher education institutions in a phased manner.

Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS):

• As education with skills is the need of the hour, the government launched the Scheme for Higher Education Youth in Apprenticeship and Skills (SHREYAS) in 2019.
• It aims to cover 50 lakh students by 2022 by providing ‘on the job work exposure’ and stipend with a view to introducing employable skills into their learning, promote apprenticeship as integral to education and also amalgamate employment facilitating efforts of the government into the education system.

National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS):

• It aims to provide skill training to fresh graduates, diploma holders in engineering and technology and Plus 2 vocational pass-outs.
• The government has proposed to integrate apprenticeship embedded degree programmes to give impetus to vocational training.

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY):

• The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship is implementing Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 2016-20 with an objective to provide skilling to one crore people under Short Term Training (STT) and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) across the country for four years i.e. 2016-2020.

Initiatives for rural women:

Mahila Shakti Kendra Scheme:

• It is a centrally sponsored scheme under the Ministry of Women and Child Development to empower rural women through community participation.
• Capacity building of women collectives is envisaged in collaboration with non-governmental organisation (NGOs)/co-operatives societies/Krishi Vigyan Kendras to address livelihood needs of women, particularly those in remote/vulnerable areas where women are not in a position to move out individually out of their immediate surroundings for formal skill training.

Saakshar Bharat Programme:

• The objective of this programme is to achieve an 80 percent literacy level at the national level, by focusing on adult women literacy and seeking to reduce the gap between male and female literacy to not more than 10 percentage points.
• The programme provided for coverage of only rural areas in the eligible districts. As per the 2011 Census, literacy rate in rural areas stood at 67.67 percent.

Padhna Likhna Ahhiyaan:

• The Padhna Likhna Abhiyan has been rolled out to replace Saakshar Bharat Scheme.
• It focuses on achieving 100 percent literacy by 2030. Under this scheme, massive literacy projects will be launched in the tribal and forests areas, prisons, slums, etc., with technology as a facilitator.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao:

• The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme works to develop an enabling environment for girl child education. It addresses the issues relating to the declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR) and aims to change the mindset of people so as to make them appreciate the value of the girl child.
• Evaluation of the BBBP scheme carried out by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in August 2020 has indicated a positive behavioural change towards the value of girl child. The sex ratio at birth has shown an improvement of 16 points at the national level from 918 (2014-15) to 934 (2019-20).

Additional Information:

Employment-related statistics:

• According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate in India was 5.8 percent in 2018-19. It was 5.6 percent among males and 3.5 percent among females in rural areas, while the rates were 7.1 percent among males and 9.9 percent among females in urban area.
• In 2018-19, the unemployment rate for youth in the 15-29 years age bracket moderated but remained high at 17.3 percent, as against 17.8 percent a year ago.