Speaking on Zee Media’s Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Subhashini Ali stressed that without maintaining quality in education, the goal of free and compulsory education won’t yield desired results.
Zee Research Group
New Delhi: Rising cost of education, poor infrastructural facilities, low pupil-teacher ratio and scarcity of skilled jobs are worsening the quality of education in the country said Subhashini Ali.
In an exclusive interview on Zee Media’s ‘Ek Naari Aisi Bhi’ under the Bharat Bhagya Vidhata initiative, President of the All India Democratic Women`s Association (AIDWA), Ali reckoned the need to provide more and more educational institutions in rural India so that the participation of rural girls can be enhanced after completion of their primary level education.
“It is unfortunate that many girls from the rural areas leave schools after completion of their primary education due to unavailability of options for higher education and many can’t afford to go to cities,” claimed Ali.
Not surprisingly, according to National Sample Survey (2009-2010) (released on June 2013), in urban areas, about 15 per cent of male and 11 per cent of female are graduates or above. This is much higher than the rural areas where only 3.7 per cent of male and a mere 1.6 per cent of female have gone up to graduation or beyond.
Taking a different stand on the issue, Nishi Pandey, professor, department of English, University of Lucknow said, “Many families in rural India don’t send their daughters to cities for higher education because they think that cities are unsafe. For people in rural India, marriage but not education is the first priority.”
ASER 2012 report published by Pratham NGO also shows that the proportion of out of school children has increased, especially among girls in the age group of 11 to 14 in rural India.
Not only this, the declining state of education gets worse with low availability of skilled jobs for educated Indians.
According to a report by “Employment and Unemployment Survey 2012 report” by ministry of labour and employment, unemployment in India rises steadily with education level. While unemployment among the illiterate is 1.2 per cent, unemployment among graduates is 9.4 per cent and among post-graduates it is 10 per cent.
The bigger cause for concern according to the labour ministry data is: the unemployment rate among rural educated youths is higher as compared to their urban counterparts. It stands at 13.9 per cent for rural areas against 7.6 per cent in urban areas.
(Ek Naari Aisi Bhi airs at 10:00 pm every Wednesday on Zee Media channels.)
