Female literacy in India

•  According to a recently conducted research by New York-based International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity, India’s school education system is under-performing in terms of quality when compared to its neighbors, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
• The proportion of women who completed five years of primary schooling in India and were literate was 48%, much less than 92% in Nepal, 74% in Pakistan and 54% in Bangladesh.
• Female literacy rates went up by one to 15% after completing two years of schooling. Corresponding numbers for Pakistan and Nepal were 3 to 31% and 11 to 47% respectively. This implies that schooling is roughly twice as productive at generating literacy for women during the early grades in Pakistan when compared to India.
• India ranks 38th among the 51 developing countries. Indonesia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania — all rank higher than India.

Analysis:

• Low female literacy rate means an overall sluggish growth of India, as it impacts every arena of the development. India is struggling hard to stabilize its growing population through family planning programs. But if females are illiterate, then this has a direct and negative impact on these initiatives.
• When a girl or a woman is not educated, it is not only she who suffers but the entire family has to bear the consequences of her illiteracy. It has been found out that illiterate women face more hardships in life than literate ones. They have high levels of fertility as well as mortality; they suffer from malnutrition and all other related health problems.
• Lack of education means lack of awareness. Illiterate women are not aware of their rights. They know nothing about initiatives taken by the government for their welfare. Illiterate women keep on struggling hard and bear harshness of life, family and even their husbands.
• There are many reasons behind the low literacy among women in India. The negative attitude of parents towards the girl child and her education is one of the major reasons of low female literacy rate in India. In most of the families, boys at home are given priority in terms of education but girls are not treated in the same way.
• Poverty is the root cause of many problems in India and also of low female literacy rate.
• Another barrier to female education in India is the lack of female teachers. As India is a gender segregated society, it is a very important factor in the low female literacy rate in India.
• But in spite of all reasons, women must understand and realize that education can actually end the vivacious cycle of poverty, their misfortune, so that they can live a life with pride. In case of any misfortune in life, it is education that would help her, not anything else. The government should really work towards the number, distance and quality of schools in rural as well as urban India. We should encourage the girl child in getting education to create a balanced and an educated society