Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Education and Rural Development: Some unintended consequences

I attended a very provocative seminar by Prof. Tripathi who has been with Allahabad University in their Organisational Behaviour Department. The seminar was based on the preliminary findings of a study conducted by him which assessed the educational impact on development indicators. The indicators were economic, social, health, gender parity and political.
The study was conducted in 12 villages in Mawana located at Meerut.The study divided the 12 villages into groups of 4 villages each-classified as low , medium and high educational levels.
The findings were very surprising.Some of them were as follows
1. Though there is positive correlation between educational level and income at the aggregate level, the SC and minorities fare much worse in high educational level villages than in the low educational level villages on the income parameters.
2.Women participation fell markedly in villages which had high educational levels.
3.Preference for male child was significantly higher in high educational level villages.
The point that Prof. Tripathi made was that the largely neo liberal policy making encouraged education for prosperity rather than education for social transformation.
It was an interesting talk, especially for those in my batch who would be joining ICICI Foundation's Centre for Elementary Education.

3 comments:

  1. I agree with you that education is taking people towards prosperity rather than social transformation. Yet, can you please give me suggestion how social transformation can be achieved through education ? As per change in curriculum in the academics always fall flat due to the politics and delays.

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  2. The view that education is largely for prosperity and not social transformation is not mine. It was Prof.Tripathi's view based on this particular research.
    Well, nothing sort of a radical change is required.Incremental changes will fall flat, as you have rightly pointed out.
    I think you should read Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society" and Paulo Frierie's " Pedagogy Of the Oppressed" to understand the radical changes

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  3. Thanks for the name of books. Have put that in my flipkart wish list. Will read this in near future ( In 2 years :P )

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