Least graduates in rural Punjab; literacy rate lowest in J&K villages

 

 

Rural population of north India (except Delhi) fares poorly on the education chart with only 3.45 per cent of all eligible people being graduates. This means 97 persons in every 100 have not reached the level of graduation in Indian villages.

 

The data has come to the fore in the first-ever provisional social and economic Census-2011 for rural India that was released today.

 

Among northern states, Punjab has the lowest percentage of graduates in rural areas at 3.02 per cent, followed by 3.24 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir; 4.14 per cent in Haryana, 5.21 per cent in Himachal; 5.84 per cent in Uttarakhand and 6.82 per cent in Chandigarh.

 

The highest percentage of graduates in rural population is in Delhi at 9.62, followed by Goa at 9.48 and Puducherry at 9.38.

 

Overall, illiteracy rate for rural India is 35.73 per cent with Jammu and Kashmir reporting higher illiteracy percentage than the national average at 39.52 per cent.

 

The rate in most of the rural north remains high with 22.05 per cent in Himachal; 31.86 per cent in Punjab; 28.39 per cent in Chandigarh; 25.41 per cent in Uttarakhand and 34.27 per cent in Haryana.

 

Rural Delhi fares better with just 13.58 per cent illiterates in its rural population.

 

The Census reveals that rural Chandigarh has the least number of women-headed households in the country with just 5.93 per cent against 40.64 per cent in Lakshadweep, which tops the tally on this crucial indicator.

 

Nationally, 12.83 per cent of all rural households are headed by women, while the percentage for Jammu and Kashmir is just 9.34; Haryana 11.73 per cent and Punjab 14.82 per cent. These are also the states with the worst child sex ratios for ages 0 to 6 years.

 

Exceptions to the category are Himachal and Uttarakhand where women-headed village households are higher than the national average at 21.53 per cent and 21.57 per cent, respectively. In 2001, 10.35 pc of all Indian households were led by women.

 

Among the five states with the highest numbers of women-headed households in rural India are Lakshadweep, Kerala, Goa, Meghalaya and Uttarakhand. These are traditional societies with higher levels of women’s empowerment and education, though experts argue that the growing numbers of women-headed households may not always reflect empowerment.

 

Research on the nature of household leadership in South Asia has in the past reflected (as in the case of Sri Lanka) that the rise in the number of women-headed households was on account of migration of men, traditional bread winners for families, in search for better livelihoods. The growing number of women-led households has also been in the past attributed to rising widowhood and separation. But experts say trends from rural India need deeper examination for revelation of reasons behind the nature of household leadership.