Education for social transformation: a collective step forward.

Education needs to be a positive force in building peaceful communities in a rapidly changing world. Thus the educational programmes and structures are being looked upon to take the responsibility of nurturing religious pluralism and spirituality in society. India has made significant progress on the educational front. The crudest measures show that the percentage of literates in India is 65 according to the 2001 census. By and large the improvement made at different levels of education: primary secondary higher and technical education has been quite substantial. However despite these achievements educational development in India suffers from two serious drawbacks. The first is that the progress made by geographical regions and social groups differ considerably. Literacy in rural India is 59 per cent in comparison to the urban literacy rate of 80 per cent as well as substantial inter-state and inter-district variations in educational advancement. Across social groups also the educational achievements differ; the literacy rates among the weaker sections are substantially lower as compared to other groups. Probably the most pertinent is the gender gap in education that still exists after fifty years of planned development. As per the 2001 census the gender gap in literacy rates (i.e. the difference in the literacy rates of males and females) in India is 25 per cent for rural areas and 13.4 per cent for urban areas. (excerpt)