Skill development in rural women through stencil printing.

Stencil printing is one of the primitive arts which is easiest amongst all printing techniques and also is comparatively cheaper. Thus, an attempt was made to train rural women in stencil printing technique so that they could start their own entrepreneurial unit. Training on stencil printing was imparted to thirty women of Kaimari village of Hisar district. The existing knowledge level of respondents regarding stencil printing technique was judged using self-structured knowledge inventory and after training, the post-exposure knowledge level was judged using the same inventory. The pre and post scores were obtained and gain in knowledge was calculated. Implementation of acquired knowledge was also studied. Results highlighted that training in the stencil printing technique was found to be very effective as there was significant gain in knowledge on various aspects of stencil printing technique at 5 per cent level of significance. Results also indicated that one third of the respondents were willing to start their entrepreneurial unit after acquiring knowledge in stencil printing technique. Hence, it can be concluded that economic status of rural women can be improved, if they adopt skilled based activity like stencil printing for earning money.