Literacy Rate in Punjab

Education is critical for attaining the goals of jobs, human resource growth, and bringing up many changes within the social setting, resulting in overall advancement via resource efficiency. An adequate education system fosters knowledge, ability, a positive mindset, consciousness, a feeling of responsibility for one’s rights or even duties, and inner fortitude to fight injustice, humiliation, and inequity.

Because education is such a huge subject, the current chapter has been separated into sections. A section regarding literacy follows an outline of school learning and higher schooling in Punjab. However, every attempt has been made to keep the links between the various parts intact.

Literacy

Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write in one’s mother language with comprehension. Literacy is the finest potential indicator for assessing a state’s degree of educational enlightenment, resulting in a minimal capability for self-learning. Literacy rates throughout Punjab are increasing. This was 58.51 per cent in 1991 and 69.95 per cent by 2001, a rise of 11.44 percentage points over the previous ten years.

Punjab has done well in closing the gender literacy difference, which has shrunk from 15.25 per cent in 1991 to 12.08 percent by 2001.

Male Punjab literacy rate climbed from 65.66% in 1991 to 75.63% in 2001, while female literacy grew from 50.4% to 63.55%. Female education climbed by 13.14 percentage points during the previous decade while male literacy rose by 9.97 percentage points. Female education rates throughout Punjab are similarly significantly higher than within India, in which 54.16 per cent of females have become literate.

Based on the 2001 Statistics, the countryside literacy level is 65.16 per cent. The urban education rate seems to be 79.13 per cent, indicating that the disparity is not particularly significant. That rural-urban educational gap has narrowed, falling from 19.31 per cent in 1991 to 13.97 per cent by 2001.

Despite these encouraging developments, the state does have 94.35 lakh illiterates (including children aged 0 to 6). (Census of India, 2001). This is also a significant concern that, despite having increased its literacy level, Punjab’s rank has fallen from 12th in 1971 to 16th by 2001 compared to neighbouring states and UTs throughout India.

Hoshiarpur district has the highest literacy rate in the province, around 81.40 per cent, trailed by Rupnagar (78.49 basis points) and Jalandhar (77.91 basis points), Nawanshahr (76.86 basis points), as well as Ludhiana (76.54 per cent).

Minimum three-fourths of those people in each of these regions are literate. Muktsar, on the other side, does have a literate people of just 58.67 per cent, while Mansa is just a bit over one-half of the way down (52.50 per cent). The main explanation for the Doaba region’s exceptional literacy rate is that educational facilities were established early throughout this region.

The accessibility of elementary schools every square kilometre is highest in the Hoshiarpur region. The strong literacy level is partly a result of the folks’ culture and the type of their employment throughout the Doaba area. The economy within this region is heavily reliant on the business industry instead of the basic sector.

Punjab has a female education rate of 63.5 per cent. This is maximum throughout Hoshiarpur (75.56 per cent), lowest throughout Mansa (45.07 per cent), and slightly over the midpoint in Muktsar (50.5 per cent) as well Ferozepur (50.5 per cent) (52.33 per cent). In addition, nine districts within Punjab have a poorer female literacy percentage than the statewide average. The overall literacy rate among overall Scheduled Castes seems to be significantly lower.

Compared with all Scheduled Castes (41.09 per cent), these non-Scheduled Communities have a higher literacy rate (65.10 per cent). Female literacy among non-Scheduled (57.6 per cent) groups is about twice those of Scheduled Category women (31.03 per cent).

As a result, the rising Scheduled Caste community has had a negative impact on the province’s overall literacy percentage. The overall literacy level of Scheduled Class women is appalling throughout Bathinda (12.84 per cent), Faridkot (15.78 per cent), Ferozepur (15.09 per cent), as well as Sangrur (15.09 per cent) (17.02 per cent).

As a result, the government must prioritise efforts to raise the literacy level of Scheduled Castes, particularly females, inside the identified areas.

Literacy in Adults

The adult learning programme was not operating at full capacity. Until the early 1990s, the Countryside Operational Literacy Project and Social Learning Scheme were centrally financed. Following the dissolution of these initiatives around June 1991, this adult learning programme inside the state was ignored for two through three years. The NLMA revitalised it and renamed it the Whole Literacy/Post Learning Programme. According to the report, 37% of people aged 15 and up seem to be illiterate. However, throughout Punjab, state government initiatives serve just the 15-35 age range, not the whole illiterate grownup population. It should be highlighted that the actual amount of illiterates inside the age range 15-35 grew between 1971 and 1981 but decreased between 1981 and 1991. Both males as well as female illiteracy rates have constantly been dropping. However, the fact that there seem to be currently 2436169 illiterates within this age range is the reason for concern.

The Full Literacy project was launched in Punjab around 1994-95 to teach functional literacy among illiterates aged 15-35. Every Deputy Director of every district would have been to carry this out through the District Saksharta Samiti.

Conclusion

The notion of giving advanced education has changed dramatically as science and technology have developed. Distance learning has supplanted traditional schooling. The modern teaching techniques mix correspondence with other communication channels, such as television, sound or video recorder, laptop, and perhaps even satellite, among others. The system’s goal is to provide educational opportunities to all people, irrespective of “who and where.” Distance learning has increased within Punjab over the last decade. The Open Education sector arose from the evolution and widespread adoption of the notion of distance education.