Socio-Economic Study of Child Education in Chhattisgarh State:

A Statistical Analysis

 

Suchita Agrawal

Dept. of Statistics, RSU, Raipur - 492001, C.G.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: suchitaagrawalraipur@gmail.com

 

ABSTRACT:

An attempt has been made in this paper to study the status of child education in Chhattisgarh in last five years. The analysis shows that the child education in villages and sub-urban area are under represented in schools in Chhattisgarh state. Drop out rates of children are almost same in case of both male and female children. The objective of this paper is to study the effect of government’s education programs which have been started to promote the literacy condition in India. Data is collected (secondary) from different schools of rural and urban area of Chhattisgarh (Raipur). Data shows that the literacy among backward people and SC/ST too, has been considerably increased after the implementation of ‘Sarv Siksha abhiyan’ and ‘mid-day meal’ program.

 

KEYWORDS: ‘Sarv Siksha abhiyan’, ‘mid-day meal’.

 

 


INTRODUCTION:

‘There cannot be educated people without educated women. If general education has to be limited to men or to women, that opportunity should be given to women, for then, it would most surely be passed on to the next generation.’ (University Education Commission, 1948) The above quotation very aptly describes the importance of women’s education which holds the key to the future progress of a nation. It is truly said that by educating a man, we educate an individual as well as we try to educate his children but by educating a woman, we educate the whole family. This shows the extent of influence of a person (man or woman) exerts in the society to bring about a change.

 

Education is the means through which a society perpetuates and spreads its own culture. It is indispensable for understanding social stresses and changes. It is also considered to be a means through which the general productivity of the population is raised leading to better standard of living. The quality of life in terms of good health, general personality growth and better social living is also closely associated with the educational status of the individual. Education is the process of bringing out the potentialities of an individual and unfolds the natural abilities, capabilities and interests before the society. It is thus basic right of every human being and the government should endeavor to provide the same.

 

To provide better and essential facilities of education in village area of India, Indian Government has started ‘Sarv Siksha abhiyan’ under which each and every Indian citizen has right to take admission in an government school. Actually, literacy rate in village area is very low, because of poverty and lack of facilities available in the villages. Village population mainly depends upon their agriculture and animal husbandry in very small scale, due to which their economic condition is very poor.

The population of ‘Chhattisgarh state’ is mainly a combination of backward classes, schedule caste and schedule tribes. Even, few places of Bastar district is not directly related with present civilization of society. Still, they are “Aboojh”. That area is famous as “Aboojhmad”. People of that area are neither civilized nor they are living like a common social people. This particular state (Chhattisgarh) does not have much urban area and hence total literacy is very less. For the development of state, first government has to popularize the education and its benefit to the people. If this can be done with great success in large scale with high speed on priority basis, then only one can think of actual social, educational, and economic development of the state.

 

For the expansion of education and literacy among village people, electronic media (TV) can play great role. Though, people are illiterate, they watch TV which telecast (state level program) many interesting programs for all types of development (Agriculture/modern electronic devices/education/governments’ new policies. eg. Swarojgar Yojana, etc.) of village people. Another major step taken by government for the economic growth of village people or poor people in C.G. is to provide ‘rice’ in very low rate so that people who belongs to below poverty line can think of education of their children. Simultaneously, ‘mid-day-meal’ program is also a great effort made by government to expand the literacy in India.

 

In spite of the expansion of opportunities for child education in independent India, the situation of child- education especially in rural area, has not improved much. Illiteracy in our country is more pronounced in women than among men. Similarly, illiteracy in rural India (about 70% population of India lives in villages) is much higher than Urban area. The lower enrolment of children in villages is due to poverty and parent’s illiteracy. Parents of village children, generally have different mal concept about the literacy of their children. They think that, “a child who is educated cannot do anything better than the illiterate one”, so they generally opt for child labourship which helps the family economically. They send their children for child labourship even at the age of 6-7 years. Sometimes this problem become so complicated that they get treated as “Bandhwa majdoor” ie; they cannot leave their job until and unless they get permission from the owner. So, a concerned effort is required by the government as well as by educated society to increase the enrolment of children in schools (Primary) so that we can achieve the desired goal of “Universalization of Primary education”. It requires a proper understanding of the importance of the education for all. In this context, the present paper makes an attempt to provide a situational analysis of education of village children in comparison to Urban children in Chhattisgarh state.

 

OBJECTIVES:

To study the child education (primary) in India with special reference to rural area of Chhattisgarh state. Under this main objective, our study focuses on the following points:

(i)        The sex composition of the students enrolled in primary and middle schools.

(ii)      Analysis of the enrolment ratios for girls in the primary and middle schools.

(iii)    To study the extent of drop-out at different levels of school education.

(iv)     To study the relative importance of educational infra structural facilities and socio-economic study of rural and urban children.

 

SOURCES OF DATA:

The data have been collected from Govt. High School, Amlidih village which is situated nearby Raipur city (Urban) and Govt. High School of Beltukri village (belongs to Rajim district). To study the drop-out rate, their attendance records have been used as source of data.

 

Table-1: Children Enrolled in Primary Schools

Name of school

Boys

Girls

Total

Amlidih (Urban)

23

27

50

Beltukri (Rural)

25

29

54

Titurdih (Rural)

29

27

56

Katulbod (Rural)

35

38

73

Hari Nagar (Urban)

52

70

122

 

RESULT AND DISCUSSION:

Table-1 shows the data collected from different schools. This table shows that in the beginning there is no discrimination between male and female child for their enrolment in the pre-primary or primary schools.

 

Table-2: To see the drop-out rate for children after primary school, data were collected from class VI, VII and VII, which are quite less than the enrolment in pre-primary classes.


 

Sl. No

Schools

Class-VI

Class-VII

Class-VIII

 

 

Girls

Boys

Girls

Boys

Girls

Boys

1

Amlidih (Urban)

19

23

17

22

15

18

2

Beltukri (Rural)

22

27

19

22

17

19

3

Titurdih (Rural)

19

24

17

20

15

18

4

Katulbod (Rural)

32

33

30

28

28

25

5

Hari Nagar (Urban)

45

63

42

58

39

57

 


Table-2 shows the drop-out of the students (both male and female). The data shows that male and female both have quite big drop-out which is a serious problem for the future development. One of the major factors responsible for drop-out is poverty. The 80%-90% of village people belong to “Below Poverty Line” and the parents of the children are forced to send their children of the age 10-12 years, for child labour. The government announced so many programs and policy against “child- labour” problem, but in real life, there is effect of government policies against “child- labours “problem.

 

Second major problem related to drop-out is “early- marriage” ie, “Bal-Vivah” in village people of Chhattisgarh state, though government has banned it but in practice it is not followed by rural-society. Early marriage of children hampers the economic and social development of the village population. Also, due to early marriage, the female children are facing serious medical problem in very early age and hence their death rate is very high.

 

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:

(1)  2 test: - The Square of a standard normal variate is known as Chi-Square variate with 1 d.f.

 

 

(2) HYPOTHESIS: - To study the correlation ship and association or effect of caste on education of children belonging to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward classes.

 

Actually, as mentioned earlier, the major population of Chhattisgarh state especially (Rural) is a combination of all above categories.

By personal interview on the basis of questionnaire, we came to know that about 80%of village population is aware of “Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan” and “Mid-day meal” facility provided by the government. This became possible by Television available in Gram Panchayat Office. Under “Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan”, government is providing “Free Text Books” and primary needs for Pre-Primary education. About 84% children of Beltukri village are availing the above facility and hence the literacy rate becomes higher suddenly.

 

In some other villages which do not have proper roads and electricity have started the “Sarv Shiksha- Abhiyan” in 2006-2007, and there is a direct effect of this policy in Primary education. The totl enrolment from 2003-2006 were only about 20%-23%, but in 2006-2007 it suddenly raised upto 50%-55%. This data shows that even illiterate and poor parents also like to educate their children for their socio-economic development.

 

To test whether there is a significant effect of caste on higher education or not, 2 –test is applied on data collected. The calculated2(1.65 at 5% level of significance) is much less than the tabulated 2 (7.82 at 5% level of significance). Hence, we accept our null-hypothesis that there is a significant effect of caste on higher education. So, we conclude that in villages also where the total population is having only 19% General category, 68% OBC, 7% scheduled caste and 6% scheduled tribe, is also facing the casteism problem. The main reason behind this problem is Poverty and illiteracy of the head of the family. When we tried to test “there is a significant relationship between Parent’s occupation and education with child education of that family, by using2 – test. We found that the calculated2(= 33.02 at 5% level of significance) is much higher than the tabulated 2 (= 16.92 at 5% level of significance). This shows that, yes, there is a significant effect of Parent’s occupation and education with the child education in Rural area. The reason behind this result is directly related with the economic condition of the family.

 

Moreover, the family size and their limitation is also a big factor responsible for not having better socio-economic development of OBC, SC and ST people. 

 

HISTOGRAM:

Original number of students enrolled:     

 

After drop-outs:


 


(iii) Program launches by government in Chhattisgarh state: -

Under “Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission”, state government has started a very interesting program to educate English language to village or sub-urban children in Abhanpur, Kondagaon and Kanker district of Chhattisgarh state by using Audio- cassettes, and now it is continued by “Akashwani”. The response of the children was very positive and even teachers of those school got awareness about the preliminary education of English language. This particular program is run by Bangalore Head Office in the whole India, now. This type of efforts running for some other subjects, for example, mathematics, science, general knowledge, etc.

By personal interview, we came to know that the main reason behind drop-out among male-child is the economic condition of their family. Male-child go for child-labour in very age (6-8 years) and help their parents economically, and drop-out rate among Female-child is also a type of child-labour problem. Female children generally help their parents in domestic work so that woman of those family can go to work on daily wages. So, all in all, the drop-out rate among village children are directly related to child-labour problem which due to poverty and illiteracy of village population.

 

SUGGESTIONS:

To improve the socio-economic condition of village population in Chhattisgarh state, first of all, each family member or head of the family should get educated and whatever programs and planning are declared by the government should be implemented in such a way that the village people can get advantage of these programs in actual. For this, every village should have at least Primary school, proper road and electricity. All this facility could be provided under PURA program declared by the government and suggested by our ex-president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

 

REFERENCE:

1.      Ministry of Education: Education in India (1998-2005), New-Delhi.

2.      D. Harichand: Girl’s Education in India; A Situational Analysis.

3.      J. Edu. Plan. and Admin. 1992; VI(2): 179-192.

 

 

 

 

Received on 27.09.2024      Revised on 15.10.2024

Accepted on 31.10.2024      Published on 05.12.2024

Available online on December 31, 2024

Res. J. of Humanities and Social Sciences. 2024;15(4):273-276.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5828.2024.00041

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