education for empowerment of rural bharat

8/8/2019 Education for Empowerment of Rural Bharat

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EDUCATION FOR EMPOWERMENT OF RURAL BHARAT

Dhirendra Mishra, [email protected], +91 9413 6210 41

Poornima Institute of Engg. And Technology, Jaipur

Introduction:

Sound health, Peaceful society, Quality

Education, Economic opportunity andHuman dignity are basic necessities of life.The recipe which plays a critical role inadvancement of Rural Bharat is learn,build, and prosper. Our first Prime Minister

Jawaharlal Nehru has said India cannot

flourish without development of rural bharatbecause the heart of India lives in Gramin

Bharat. Education enables a person with power of not only knowledge of abc ofEnglish alphabets and problems of loss andprofit but also their rights and life skills bywhich they will cherish all the gifts of god.The power of education enables people to

take a fuller part in society, to have aninfluence and make their voices heard. A

famous saying of William Henry Beveridgesays that

Ignorance is an evil weed, whichdictators may cultivate amongtheir dupes, but which nodemocracy can afford among itscitizen.

These words are clearly signifying that forempowerment of a nation education is basic

need and right of a citizen.

Role of Primary Educationin reinforcement of Rural

Bharat:

Present scenerio with a recap of past

At the birth of independence of India,traditional education was esoteric andmetaphysical and was characterised by

historical inequities. The Indian farmerswere still following the traditional methods

of farming and facing various stumblingblocks of wreck and spoil of their crops andwhich has bring down their life. The answerto their problems is not modern techniquesof farming but the know-how of using themand this is only possible if they areeducated. According to article 45 of

Directive Priniples of state policy it is right

of every child to have free and compulsory

education,but this right was onlyconcentrated to manuscript of constitution.

However, the portrait of Education standards of budding Bharat began tochange rapidly due to new thurst ofdevelopment and as governmentsrealisation that without education

development of a country is like a castle inthe sky. The New Policy of Education (1986)and the Programme of Action (1992) were

set in motion aiming to reduce drop outs

and improving learning achievements for allchildren in age group of 6-14 years. A hordeof major resourcefulness of government andthe mobilisation of outside sources for

primary education left a deep impact onpresent status of education in India.

The Major remarkable endeavours of government of India are OperationBlackboard (1986), Non formal EducationScheme (1986), the Sikhsha karmi

Project(1987), the District Primary

Education Programme (1994), the Mid DayMeal Scheme (1995) and the Sarva SikshaAbhiyan (2001).

All these programmes have changed theface of rural society of India. The educationhas not only given them the knowledge ofalphabets but also the well-built

understanding of their Indian culture. The83rd constitutional amendment and theSupreme Courts insistence on states to

smooth the progress of providing hot cooked

meals in schools has led to the rising
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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enrolments of rural students, mostly thegirls.

Now, slowly and slowly the Gramin Bharatis on the track of shaking hands with theworld and showcasing their potential.

How education can be aright tool for upliftment ofGramin Bharat?

This question can be perfectly answered bythe illustrative example of a poor farmer

Ramdin of Durgapur, a village of district

Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. He has a few bighasof farming land and since last five years heis not able to make up best of it and he is

only growing only one type of crops on this field which is making soil of that landdepleted of nutrients of particular type andthus making the soil infertile and resultingin low yielding crop.

Ramdin has a family of seven members,consisting three sons, one daughter, hismother and his wife. Ramdins sons usedto go to school but his daughter doesnt.

He thinks that that girl should not crossthe doors of house.

With the passage of time and governments initiative a literacy program is being scheduled by grampanchayat for all villagers in which theywill not only learn to write their namesbut also know how to make best use oftheir land.

This program really worked and now Ramdin is yielding a good harvest from

his field as from that program he came toknow about crop rotation, modernirrigation technique and fertilizers.

The scenario of Ramdins house has beenchanged; his daughter now goes to schoolwith her brothers and showing goodresults than her brothers. Ramdin nowuses drip irrigation for irrigating thecrops as it reduces the wastage of water.

Here the answer of the asked questiontakes the finishing touch because theeducation has not made them

economically strong but also has changedthe conservative and narrow thinking of

peoples like Ramdin.

If through this small initiative of Gram panchayat, education can change themindset and standard of living of Ramdinthen the other people can also found the

support and resources needed to live

sustainably in their own rural communitythrough the Education.

Education and the societyof Rural Bharat:

The Society is a term which incorporates the

various facets of the overall socio-economicenvironment in which a person or a grouplives. The society encompasses the familyand the comprehensive relatives group, the

cast hierarchy, the economic conditions andthe relations, the religious beliefs and

practices and the social demography of theregion. This figure illustrates the definitionof society.


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Figure 1. Society and its Divisions

The social framework is exceptionallyrelevant to the subject of elementary

education in India. It is essentially sobecause the educational decisions ofchildren are family/household decisions,and are governed by it. The gender divisionsof labour, the kinship system, the casterelated norms, economic power and so on,are unfortunately features of Indian society.This statement is trivial, but it is worthnothing that the overwhelming context

dependence of literacy achievementsconflicts with the notion of elementaryeducation as the basic right of all citizens.

The social and cultural, religious economic factors play a critical and vital role inenhancing or diminishing educationalchances of the children.

Through education we might be able tochange this scenario of Indian society andwill strengthen the path of empowerment of

rural India.

What ruined the educationsystem of Rural Bharat?

It has been said by Martin Luther

King that Nothing in the world is

more dangerous than sincere

ignorance and conscientious

stupidity. There are various

factors which hampers the

literacy goals of Rural Bharat

and hence making the path of

development more difficult. These

are:

Figure 2. Factors Affecting Education in

Rural Bharat

The economic factors

It includes the fiscal status of the childrens

family, poverty, child work, schooling costs.

The socio-cultural factors

It comprises child marriage and kinship

pattern and gender disparities in education,

caste hierarchy and caste discrimination

leading to educational deprivation of

certain low castes and scheduled tribes from

educational system. One of the important

factors is religion.

Corruption

This is one of the factors which has

ruined the education system and various

policies and educational programs of

India.

Parental motivation for

sons education


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In this machine age, even now the girls

are given second class status over boys,

which is not a good sign for future of

India.

Parental background

In our villages it has been observed that

the son of a carpenter will become

carpenter, son of farmer become farmer

and son of cowherd will become a

cowherd and so on.

How rural poverty inremote villages affects youand me?

We all are closely interlinked with

each other. What happens in the

most far-flung villages around the

globe directly shapes the

possibilities and prosperity of our

metro cities. There are thousands ofpeople who are left no with no

other way to support their

livelihood and they become

victim of migration from rural

areas to urban areas, in other

words theyare forced to make the

heartbreaking choice of leaving

their families and villages to seek

opportunity in bigger cities.

The result of this migration is increaseddemand of food, water, and shelter. It also

gives rise to slums and as a result the

cities are overcrowded and crammed fullbeyond its capacity and the shocking sideeffects of pollution, poverty, disease and

food and water scarcity, menacing thehealth and strength of the our economyare faced.

If the villagers are encouraged foreducation then they get hold of theirskillsand their inner soul will attain hugeamplification and education will broaden

their thinking. They will have enough skills to have utilize the governmentsvarious programs promoting small scaleindustries, and then they would not bedependent on cities for their livelihood.

The urgent challenge is to make rural

villages viable places to live so we cansucceed and thrive together.

Conclusion

Education is therefore, is said to be apowenful weapon for empowerment of Rural

Bharat which transcends a rural panoramainto a built-up arena where every individual

is not only having assets of ethnicity andculture but also a taste of pure India. Theday is not for away when Rural Bharat willattain all limits of literacy rate and Gramin

Bharat will march ahead in worlddevelopment.

I wrap my paper with the message that in

true hands education is most effective means

for empowerment of Rural Bharat and with

the saying of Chief OBafemi awolowo i.e.

In honest hands, literacy

is the surest and most

effective means to true

education Chief Obafemi

Awolowo (1929-1987)

Acknowledgement:

The completion of this paper would not

complete without expression of thanks to

Mrs. Krati Sharma for her valuable


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Guidance and instruction in understanding

the deepness of the topic. So with reverence,

veneration and honours I acknowledge all

those people who have encouraged me time

to time in making this effort successful.

References:

I. READ Global, a U.S.-based

international nonprofit organization

II. Discovery of India, by Pundit

Jawaharlal Lal Nehru

III. The constitution of India

IV. International Seminar on Co-

operating for Literacy, Berlin,

1983:One billion illiterates, onebillion reasons for action: reportand extracts from papers.

V. Oxford University press,VI. UNICEF website contents

VII. Rogers, Alan, collab., et al.: Re-

defining post-literacy in a changingworld. London, Department for

International Development, 1999,

117VIII. Times of India, website contents

IX. Report on social context of elementary education in India by

Azij Premji Foundation.X. National centre for education statics

education for empowerment of rural bharat

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