Empowering Women through Distance

Education in India
* Andalib Zaihra
** Tmanna khan
*** Dr. Zeba Sheereen
Abstract
The term Open and Distance Education represents approaches that focus on opening access to
education and training provision, freeing learners from the constraints of time and place, and
offering flexible learning opportunities to individuals and groups of learners.In response to
the growing social demand for education, training for professional development,
opportunities for Open and Distance Learning (ODL) have been augmented. India developed
open and distance education system, both at school and higher education level in the country
to supplement its face to face, conventioanal education system with the objective to provide
opportunity for education to larger segment of population. Open and Distance Learning
(ODL) is used as a major vehicle to break the three vectors - access, quality and cost – that
has constrained education of women from time immemorial, in order to improve women’s
wellbeing, reduce their vulnerability and act as a starting point in their empowerment. Female
literacy in India today is still considerably lower than male literacy and much more needs to
be done to realize the right of quality and education for all. The problem of illiteracy is
aggravated by social constraints, which inhibit female literacy and the educational
development of women. Inequality between the genders is one of the most crucial and yet one
of the most persistent disparities in India where differences in female and male literacy rates are
glaring. The Indian government has expressed a strong commitment towards education for all;
however, India still has one of the lowest female literacy rates. This low level of literacy not
only has a negative impact on women’s lives but also on their families’ lives and on their
country’s economic development. This paper analyses the importance of Distance education,
and its cost-effectiveness, knowledge creation and other factors related to distance education
and its role in empowering women through education.

*Research scholar, Dept. of Economics, Aligarh Muslim University. Aligarh

(andalib.zehra@gmail.com)
** Research scholar, Dept. of Economics, Aligarh Muslim University. Aligarh
***Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh
Introduction

Education is the most important instrument to enhance human capabilities and to achieve the
desired objectives of socio-economic development. Education enables individuals to make
informed choices, broaden their horizons and opportunities and to have a voice in public
decision-making. It is universally accepted that education is the most important instrument
for human resource development and educating girls is one of the most important investments
any country can make in its own future. Women education has assumed special significance
in the context of country’s planned development. This is because women constitute half of
the nation’s population and it is generally accepted that education as a source of social
mobility, equality and empowerment, both at the individual and collective level is imperative
for women, who constitute half of mankind, if societies have to develop in any meaningful
way.
Educating girl offers extraordinary social and economic benefit to current and future
generation. Yet in many developing countries poverty and belief that cultivating a boy’s mind
is more important than educating a girl work hand in hand to keep girl out of school.
Schooling has innumerable benefits and yet vast majority of Indian children especially girls
are deprived of these benifits. Despite various measures undertaken by the government and
local bodies to reduce the inequality in education, gender, caste, class and religion, this
inequality still persist. The National Policy on Education (NPE) especially emphasized the
necessity of reorienting education to promote women equality. Despite concerted efforts to
improve the enrolment of girls and provide education for them, their educational status is still
far from satisfactory. Female enrolment in educational institutions is low as when compared
with males and dropout rates among girls are very high.

Recent assessment show that girl’s participation in schooling has improved significantly
during the last 10-15 years. However the global monitoring report of UNESCO on progress
towards EFA goals considers the progress to be far from satisfactory and declares the country
at risk of not achieving the goal of gender parity and equality. This problem led to serious
rethinking, and emphasis was placed on universalization of elementary education, on the one
hand and establishment of an alternative and open learning on the other.
It is against this backdrop that Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has been identified as the
panacea to the perennial educational challenges of equitable access to learning, equality of
basic educational opportunities as well as providing a second chance for women and girls
who had never been or had once been in the system but had to drop out for one reason or
another.

Open and Distance learning: Concept and Benefits

The term Open and Distance Education represent approaches that focus on opening access to
education and training provision, freeing learners from the constraints of time and place, and
offering flexible learning opportunities to individuals and groups of learners. In responce to
the growing social demand for education, training for professional development,
opportunities for Open and Distance Learning (ODL) have been augmented. The flexible and
innovative characteristic features of ODL systems allow for meeting the educational
requirement of hetrogeneous groups of learners at low costs.

In efforts to meet the new and changing demands for education and training, open and
distance learning may be seen as an approach that is at least complementary and under certain
circumstances an appropriate substitute for the face-to-face methods that still dominate most
educational systems. While its benefits can be evaluated by technical, social and economic
criteria, distance learning methods also have their own pedagogical merit, leading to different
ways of conceiving knowledge generation and acquisition. To the learner, open and distance
learning means more freedom of access, and thereby a wider range of opportunities for
learning and qualification. The barriers that may be overcome by distance learning include
not only geographical distance, but also other confining circumstances, such as personal
constraints, cultural and social barriers and lack of educational infrastructure. For the student
it is often a cheaper alternative to pursuing a course through conventional methods. Since
many people cannot afford to leave their work in order to study, it is important that distance
education and training may be combined with work.

Open and Distance education utilises following combination of four technologies:

Correspondence system originated at the end of the nineteenth century, and is still the most
widely used form of distance education in less developed countries. Based around a study
guide in printed text and often accompanied by audio and video components such as records
and slides, interaction in the correspondence method is by letters and other written or printed
documents sent through postal systems.

Educational television and radio systems use various delivery technologies terrestrial,
satellite, and cable television and radio, to deliver live or recorded lectures to both individual
home-based learners and groups of learners in remote classrooms where some face-to-face
support might be provided.

Multimedia systems encompass text, audio, video, and computer-based materials, and usually
some face-to-face learner support delivered to both individuals and groups. In this approach,
which is used by the open universities, programmes are prepared for distribution over large
numbers of learners, usually located across a whole country.

Internet-based systems in which multimedia (text, audio, video and computer- based)
materials in electronic format are delivered to individuals through computers, along with
access to databases and electronic libraries, and which enable teacher-student and student-
student, one-to-one, one-to many, and many-to-many interactions, synchronously or
asynchronously, through e-mail, computer conferences, bulletin boards, etc.

Education and Empowerment of Women

Empowerment means greater reliance on the part of women, that is challenging a subordinate
position in order to change roles and by striving and presenting to gain leadership.
Eempowerment also means expansion of freedom of choices and action. New standards of
women empowerment emerged from the 1990’s conferences. The 1985 UN Nairobi
Women’s Conference had asserted all issues are women’s issues. In this conference
Empowerment was stated to be ‘a distribution of social power and center of resources in
favour of women’. Education is a basic human right that increases the economic, social and
political opportunities available to women. It empowers women to take control of their lives
and create opportunities and choices to improve their condition. Indian government has
expressed the strong commitment towards education for all. Though the gender gap in
educational institutions has reduced over the years, but in India it is still a matter of great
concern. Despite rapid growth in literacy in post-independence period in India, gender
disparity still exists and need to be overcome. The persistent low educational participation of
girls till recently has had adverse impact on women’s quality of life and empowerment.
Education strengthens innate ability through knowledge, power and experience enabling an
individual to think, act and control human, intellectual and financial resources. Besides
providing knowledge, skill and income earning opportunities, education of women can
reduce child and maternal mortality and fertility. Empowerment therefore is possible only
with access to education as a fundamental right.

Literacy in India: An overview

In independent India education acquired special significance and was supported by the
government through its policies and programmers. Therefore the system expanded rapidly.
As shown in table 1, there has been considerable increase in the rate of female literacy in last
two decade. It was noticed that 1951-2001 the rate of female literacy has been increased by
6.0 times where in case of male it is 2.8 times (MHRD). Again it was observed that since
1981, the male female gap in literacy is getting closer which is a positive indication on the
part of education of women in our country. However it is noticed that in the rate 2004-05 of
female literacy is 51.10% against the male literacy which is 78.00% this shows that
percentage of female-illiteracy is 27.10% of male. Hence it is imperative to take special
intervention for enhancing education of female in our country.

Table 1: Crude Literacy Rate, (1951 to 2005)

Year Crude literacy rate Male-Female
( In percentage) Literacy Gap

Total Male Female

1951 16.67 24.45 7.93 16.52

1661 20.02 34.44 12.95 21.49
1971 29.45 39.45 18.69 20.76
1981 36.23 46.89 24.82 22.7
1991 42.84 52.74 32.17 22.57
2001 54.51 63.24 45.15 18.09
2004-05 63.60 78.00 51.10 27.10
Source- Selected educational statistics, (2004-05)
Percentage of girls’ enrolment to total enrolment by stages, (1990-91 to 1998-
99)
This section gives us a brief overview of girls’ enrolment at primary, upper Primary,
Secondary and Senior secondary level in India. The participation of girls at all stages of
education has been increasing steadily through the years as may be seen from the table 2.
Since 1990-91 girls’ participation has increased many folds in Primary, upper primary,
secondary and Sr. secondary stages from 41.5% to 46.6%, from 36.7% to 44.7% and from
32.9% to 42.0% respectively. However girl’s participation is still below 50% at all stages of
education.

Table 2: Percentage of girls enrolment to total enrolment by stages, (1990-91 to 1998-99)

Year Primary Upper Primary Secondary/Sr.

(I-V) (VI-VIII) Secondary(IX-XII)
1990-91 41.5 36.7 32.9
1991-92 41.9 38.2 33.8
1992-93 42.6 38.8 33.9
1993-94 42.7 39.1 34.3
1994-95 42.9 39.3 35.9
1995-96 43.1 39.5 36.1
1996-97 43.2 39.9 36.4
1997-98 43.5 40.3 36.5
1998-99 43.9 40.8 37.8
1999-00 43.6 40.4 38.7
2000-01 43.7 40.9 38.6
2001-02 44.1 41.8 39.5
2002-03 46.8 43.9 40.3
2003-04 46.7 44.0 41.1
2004-05 46.7 44.4 41.5
2005-06 46.6 44.7 42.0
Source: Selected Educational Statistics, (2004-05)

Dropout rates among girls

It is officially admitted that dropout rate among girls is much higher than the boys. More girls
than boys tend to drop out of school at all levels. Though the dropout rates have been
declining over the years, even a modest gap means that more females than males joined rank
of persons with incomplete primary and secondary education. The following figure shows
dropout rates among girls at elementary and secondary stages. It can be seen from the figure
that dropout rate at secondary stage is higher as compared to primary stage. Secondary stage
is a crucial stage where diversification of curricula and streaming occurs. Such a high rate of
dropout at this stage has serious repurcussions on girls’ retention rate.

Figure1: Dropout rates among Girls at Elementary and Secondary Stages

Dropout Rates among Girls at Elementary and

Secondary stages
90
80
70
60
Elementary level
50 Secondry level
40
30
20
10
0
1990 1992 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
-91 -93 -96 -97 -98 -99 -00 -01 -02 -03 -04 -05 -06

Source: Calculated from Selected Educational Statistics,(2005-06)

Reasons for dropout

In spite of policy pronouncement and several steps taken by government the gender
disparities persist at all levels education. The main factors responsible for girls’ non
enrolment and drop out are as follows:
(1) Socio-cultural factors:
(a) Age factor- age had a very small, though statistically significant impact on school
participation. Girls are withdrawn from education once they attain puberty due to
conservative cultural values of the parents and society.

(b) Parental motivation for son’s education:

While the parental motivation for son education is high amongst all social groups; a
commitment to female education is rather inadequate. Girls are neglected since their birth or
even before due to patriarchal society that prefers sons.
(c) Early marriage- girls often have to overcome many obstacle within their communities
before they can realise their right to an education. In many instances they have limited control
over their futures and often encouraged to marry young. Girls education is cut short by by
early marriage.
(2) Economic factors:
(a) Occupation- it was observed that enrolment chances were highest among the girls whose
fathers were employed in white collar job. 24% of farmer daughter, 29% of daughters of
agricultural labourers and 19% of the girls from blue collar families were likely to dropout of
school(Piyali Sengupta and Guha2002). So it is evident that occupation also has a strong
influence on the education of a girl.

(b) Child labour - recent studies have shown that child labour is one of the important factors
that hinders the education of children particularly of girls. The girls worked in the houses,
cotton fields and prepare ‘BIDI’ at home for factory.

(c) Education is costly for parents- the cost of education is single biggest factor pertaining
families from sending girl to school. Even though in India primary education is free for all till
age 14, other costs such as books, school uniform, fees for examination, transport and other
expenditure compelled them not to send their daughters to school

(3) Educational factors:

(a) Inadequate facilities-
Fourth all India educational survey conducted by NCERT found that 9% of primary schools
did not have proper buildings. The survey found that only 58.5% of schools had blackboards,
19.42% of primary schools were having furniture and maps. Toilet facility was provided in
only14.81% primary schools.

(b) Female teachers- importance of female teachers are widely accepted as a means of
promoting greater gender equality. Less number of female teacher often discourage parents to
send their daughter to school. While the number of female teacher has increased gradually in
India, the proportion remains extremely low in most parts of the country in rural areas.

(c) Distance to school- distance to school was a bigger problem for girls, for parents felt that
it was unsafe for girls to walk long distances.
Role of Open and Distance education in women empowerment
India developed Open and Distance Education (ODE) system, both at school and higher
education levels, in the country to supplement its face-to-face, conventional education system
with the objective to provide opportunity for education to larger segment of population.
In order to take care of flexible and learner-centric schooling needs of the masses in the year
1979, a project was started by Country’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE),
which has now taken the shape of National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).

NIOS has international presence and provides access to sustainable and learner-centric
quality school education (from basic to senior secondary level), skill up-gradation, training
through open and distance learning and ensures convergence of open schooling organizations.
It has approximately 1.5 million learners on its roll, which made it the largest Open
Schooling organisation of the world.

India established Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in 1985 to enhance
access and equality of higher education through distance mode and to promote, coordinate
and determine standards in ODE systems. IGNOU provides innovative and need based
general as well as continuing education to: the person from disadvantaged groups, physically
challenged; homemakers; and, those, who are based in remote areas for their educational and
professional development (Dr. Paliwal, D. k.2008).

Enrolment of girls in The National Open School (NOS)

For various socio-economic and cultural factors discussed above, girls have lower
participation in schools and higher dropout rate. If we look at educational factors only then
inadequate facilities in schools, less number of female teachers and distance to schools at
secondary level affects girls’ participation more than boys’. Therefore large number of girls
remains outside the formal education system at secondary stage. In view of this severe gender
disparity, NOS from very beginning laid emphasis on improving the participation of
girls/women education. In order to promote their participation, NOS offers fee concessions to
20 to 30 per cent of girls/women. As result of such effort girl’s enrolment in NOS constituted
36 per cent of total enrolment during 1998-99. (K, sujatha 2002)

Total 3: Enrolment of Girl’s in all NOS courses from 1991-92 to 1998-99

 Year Girl’s Enrolment Total

Number Percentage
1991 14,718 36.00 40,884
1991-92 14,136 40.64 34,781
1992-93 20,717 38.67 53,567
1993-94 22,253 35.73 62,283
1994-95 23,731 35.59 66,635
1995-96 23,824 31.58 75.433
1996-97 31,701 34.99 90,612
1997-98 34,742 32.63 106,460
1998-99 47,071 35.60 132,222
Source: Sujatha (2002), NOS Annual Reports
Note* : Further data not available

Enrolment per gender from, 1995-1996 to 1998-1999

The percentage of girls ranged between 40 to 31 over the period of ten years. The percentage
of girls at secondary level is slightly higher (32.50) than at the senior secondary level
(30.26). The proportion of girls at secondary level shows certain consistency, it having
remained around 32 per cent in last five years.

Table 4: Enrolment per gender from, 1995-1996 to 1998-1999

Year Secondary Senior Secondary
Male Female % in Total Male Female % in Total
1995-96 67.85 32.15 60.00 68.41 31.59 36.78
(30.708) (14,548) (18,982) (8,765)
1996-97 65.14 34.86 59.75 67.48 32.52 34.48
(35,272) (18,873) (21,081) (10,160)
1997-98 66.95 30.05 60.00 68.22 31.62 35.90
(42,771) (21,111) (26.133) (12,085)
1998-99 67.47 32.50 40.05 69.47 30.26 34.59
(50,230) (24,222) (31,896) (13,839)
Source: Sujatha (2002), NOS Annual Reports
Note* : Further data not available

Further, the participation of girls’ in absolute number has increased, over the years showing
the positive trend in NOS achievement. When we compare the proportion of girl participation
in NOS with that in terms of formal education at secondary level (37%), the figures are more
or less comparable. While formal education has taken many decades to reach the present
proportion of girls, NOS has the credit of having achieved the same level of participation in
such a shorter period. Thus, through increasing the enrolment of girls in distance education
NOS has been able to empower those girls/women who are deprived of formal education or
have dropped out due to socio-economic and other reasons before learning something useful.

Cost efficiency of open and distance learning

The open and distance education has also proved to be cost efficient in comparison to those
of conventional education. One major difference is that distance education may make it
possible to expand education without investing in buildings: open schools need a
headquarters, and may need local centers but do not need a campus building commensurate
with the number of students they are to teach.
A study conducted by Aggarwal on the cost of education on secondary school in Delhi
provide per student unit cost for different management type schools. An attempt is made here
to compare the per unit cost on student in NOS with that of formal schools in Delhi.

Table 5: Unit cost of NOS and formal schools

Type of system Number of students Per student Institutional
cost(In Rs)
Kendriya Vidyalya 30,990 904
State government run schools 17,741 1,019
Aided schools 33,812 969
Unaided schools 74,115 747
National Open School 40,884 599
Source: Aggarwal, 1991, ‘School Education’, Arya Book Depo, New Delhi

When compared with other formal schools, NOS represents considerable cost savings over
the conventional schools. The cost of education varies among different schools. The cost of
both NOS and unaided schools is found to be very low compared with the costs of schools
run by the Delhi government. When comparison is made with Kendriya Vidyalya, which is
totally funded by the central government, the per student cost in NOS is one-third low. It was
found that per student cost in NOS was nearly half of that in government schools.

Conclusion
Education is the most important instrument to enhance human capabilities and to achieve the
desired objectives of socio-economic development. Education is a basic human right that
increases the economic, social and political opportunities available to women. It empowers
women to take control of their lives and create opportunities and choices to improve their
condition.
Empowerment means greater reliance on the part of women, that is challenging a subordinate
position in order to change roles and by striving and presenting to gain leadership. The
persistent low educational participation of girls till recently has had adverse impact on
women’s quality of life and empowerment. Education strengthens innate ability through
knowledge, power and experience enabling an individual to think, act and control human,
intellectual and financial resources. Empowerment therefore is possible only with access
to education as a fundamental right.
Education of girls and women in general has been a high priority with the Government of
India. Despite concerted efforts to improve the enrolment of girls and provide education for
them, their educational status is still far from satisfactory. Female enrolment in educational
institutions is low as when compared with males and dropout rates among girls are very high.

It is against this backdrop that Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has been identified as the
panacea to the perennial educational challenges of equitable access to learning, equality of
basic educational opportunities as well as providing a second chance for women and girls
who had never been or had once been in the system but had to drop out for one reason or
another.
The term Open and Distance Education represent approaches that focus on opening access to
education and training provision, freeing learners from the constraints of time and place, and
offering flexible learning opportunities to individuals and groups of learners. In responce to
the growing social demand for education, training for professional development,opportunities
for Open and Distance Learning(ODL) have been augmented.

For various socio-economic and cultural reasons, girls have lower participation in schools
and higher dropout rate. Therefore large number of girls remains outside the formal education
system at secondary stage. In view of this severe gender disparity, NOS from very beginning
laid emphasis on improving the participation of girls/women education. In order to promote
their participation, NOS offers fee concessions to 20 to 30 per cent of girls/women. As result
of such effort girl’s enrolment in NOS constituted 36 per cent of total enrolment during 1998-
99. Further, the participation of girls’ in absolute number has increased, over the years
showing the positive trend in NOS achievement. When we compare the proportion of girl
participation in NOS with that in terms of formal education at secondary level (37%), the
figures are more or less comparable. While formal education has taken many decades to
reach the present proportion of girls, NOS has the credit of having achieved the same level of
participation in such a shorter period. Thus, through increasing the enrolment of girls in
distance education NOS has been able to empower those girls/women who are deprived of
formal education or have dropped out due to socio-economic and other reasons before
learning something useful.
The open and distance education has also proved to be cost efficient in comparison to those
of conventional education. When compared with other formal schools, NOS represents
considerable cost savings over the conventional schools. When comparison is made with
Kendriya Vidyalya, which is totally funded by the central government, the per student cost in
NOS is one-third low. It was found that per student cost in NOS was nearly half of that in
government schools.
Thus, apart from providing education to the doorstep of learners, ODL has also proved to be
cost efficient. Therefore, the girls/women who are deprived of formal education due to
financial constraint, can get enroll in NOS or other open and distance schools and can
complete their schooling at very low costs. NOS played a critical role in providing a second
chance to school dropout girls’, to resume access and continue secondary education.

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