Barriers In The Growth Of India’s Rural Education System

Education and Training division — Asha Bhavan Centre

Considering the topic of education system in India, one cannot just boast of the highly advanced educational institutions in the urban areas. The progress of education at the grass roots level is also of primary concern and rural education in India constitutes about 90% of the schools being located in rural areas. Statistical records from extensive surveys have shown that rural education in India has developed to some extent, but there are still quite a number of serious hindrances to the growth of education in the countryside.

We cannot deny that education is the doorway to the wider world, and leads to the road to improvement of the community and the nation as a whole. Therefore, the foremost step to pave the way for the development of education system in India is to identify the hindrances in the path. The challenges faced by the growth of education in rural India are as follows:

• The income of the people in rural areas is often very meagre, which is even too less to maintain a family of maybe four or five sometimes. As a matter of fact, children from these families will not be sent to school, but will have to set out in search of work to assist the earning member and add an extra income to the gross earnings of the family.
• Lack of quality education is a major drawback of schools in the rural areas due to fewer committed teachers, deficiency of proper text books, and insufficient learning material in the schools. Even though a large number number of students have started attending schools in rural areas, over fifty percent of students in fifth standard are unable to read even a text book that’s of second grade and cannot solve simple mathematical problems.
• Due to the availability of fewer transport facilities in the rural areas, most children have to walk miles to reach government funded schools and this demotivates them a lot to attend school on a regular basis.
• Improper infrastructure at rural schools such as small classrooms, inadequate teaching equipment, lack of playgrounds and unclean toilets, is a big reason to drive away students.

Efforts by NGOs (Non Government Organisations), however, have helped local governing bodies to a great extent in building competently equipped and well-facilitated educational institutions in the rural areas. The NGOs are also lending support to underprivileged children so that they can have access to proper education, thus contributing to the progress of rural education in India.