A Regional Analysis of Literacy and Educational Levels of Scheduled Caste in Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Literacy is a sensitive indicator of cultural advancement of an area. Literacy helps a social group to acquire a higher social status through the process of social mobility. The abysmally low rates of growth in literacy have been the result of faulty educational policy of British Government in India. The British policy of providing education to the elite resulted in neglect of mass education. The socio-economic base of education in colonial India was extremely narrow and the door of education was closed for the economically and socially deprived sections of the society. There is a wide disparity in educational opportunities between scheduled and non-scheduled population of India. The main objective of the paper is to highlight the literacy status of scheduled castes in Uttar Pradesh and present a district wise analysis. In this paper an attempt has been made to present the educational status of scheduled caste since 1911. The first two section of the paper is devoted to the analysis of scheduled caste education during British period. The subsequent sections dealt with impact of post independence efforts. In the last section an attempt has also been made to assess the sex disparity in literacy within scheduled caste and disparity between scheduled and non-scheduled population. We find that the percentage of literates within scheduled caste population is particularly small in the districts in which their population is high. Another interesting feature is that all those districts where literacy among general population is high, scheduled caste literacy are also high.