An article on Education & Development

Title : Education and Development

P. SRINIVASAN
Lecturer, Dept. of Education & Management
Tamil University, 613 010
Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

1. INTRODUCTION

Men are born with intelligence. We could trace the intelligence of men when he took two stones and rubbed it together to form a spark of fire and applied it to cook the food. This incidence refers to Stone Age men. We apply our intelligence since then in many fields.
Intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge. Intelligence as defined by Stoddard (1943) is the ability to undertake activities that are characterized by (1) difficulty, (2) complexity, (3) abstraction, (4) economy, (5) adaptiveness to a goal, (6) social value and (7) the emergence of originals and to maintain such activities under conditions that demand a concentration of energy and a resistance to emotional forces.
Economics is the study of how a society organizes its money, trade and industry. We now know intelligence and economics. Then by adding the two terms economic intelligence is born.
Economic Intelligence is information concerning the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, as well as labour, finance, taxation etc organize this information to form a better developed nation in comparable with international economic system. This article concerns with one service, which is Education.

2. EDUCATION
Etymologically the word Education has come from “educare / educere” which means to draw out. There are hundreds of definitions for Education. Here is one from our father of our nation.

Educaiton is drawing our the best in body, mind and soul


It is Education rather than any other aspect which propels the nation to become a progressive nation. That is why this important aspect is taken in this article.

3. NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL STATUS
The following table gives the decadal national literacy level according to 2001 census.
Table 1. National Literacy Level
S.No Category 1991 in % 2001 in %
1 Men 64.13 75.85
2 Women 39.42 54.36
3 Total 51.77 65.22

Courtesy: National Census Organization
From table 1 it can be seen that the national literacy levels have increased from 51.77% to 65.22% that is approximately 14% increment. Let us see where do we stand actually.

4. ASSESMENT ON NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL STATUS
Even though there is a quantitative increment of 14% in national literacy levels, quality of education provided and attained have to be checked. Here are two assessments on the national educational status.
One is Pratham, a non governmental organization measures the status of education annually. It adopts scientific method in its procedure. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2008 by Pratham are given below.
a. In Bihar only 52 % of the enrolled students were found to be attending schools.
b. In Rajasthan, UP, West Bengal, Jharkand, Orissa and MP 60 to 70 % of the enrolled students were found to be attending schools.
c. 44 % of children in public schools in std II to std V cannot read simple paragraphs.
d. Nearly 54 % children cannot do two digit subtraction problems.
e. 40 percent in public schools in std VI to VIII are unable to handle division problems.
There is another assessment on national educational status which is called as PROBE (Public Report on Basic Education System). This is decadal study. The latest report is between the years 1996 – 2006.
There were some positive changes from previous survey.
a. School enrolment rates have risen sharply, from 80% to 95% in the age group of 6 – 12 years.
b. Social disparities in school enrolment have considerably narrowed.
c. Gap between boys and girls has disappeared.
d. Enrolment of Muslims, SC and ST are better.
e. School infrastructure has been improved
f. School incentives are reaching many more. Examples are uniform, books, mid-day meals etc.

5. WOMEN EDUCATION
If all the women are educated, then our nation will be developed certainly. Swami Vivekananda calls him as a traitor, who does not provide women education. There is no hope of rise for that family or country where there is no education of women. The women educational status has been given in the table 2 from 1951 to 2001, which is spanning over five decades.
Table 2. National Women Literacy Level
S.No Year % of Literacy
1 1951 10.06
2 1961 18.17
3 1971 23.86
4 1981 34.19
5 1991 39.42
6 2001 54.36

Courtesy: National Census Organization
A gradual increase in the literacy level of women has been seen from the table 2. Even though there is an increase it is not enough. The causes for lower female literacy rate than men are
a. Gender based inequality
b. Social discrimination and economic exploitation
c. Occupation of girl child in domestic chores
d. Low enrolment of girls in schools
e. Low retention rate and high dropout rate
4. CONCULSION
We have seen the reports of Pratham, PROBE and national literacy levels from National Census Organization. Some of the negative reflections in national educational measurement are
a. Poor attendance
b. Shortage of teachers
c. Low pupil-teacher ratio
d. Poor performance of students
e. Domination of rote-learning method
We have to eliminate these negative reflections by provide quality education for men and women of this country. If we do so, then we will become a 100% literate nation. Education is the only aspect which brings social development, moral development, physical and health development, spiritual development, mental development and what ever development we name it. Cent percent literate nation only will become a developed, modernized, progressive nation. Let us try to achieve that.