REGIONAL DISPARITIES PATTERN OF LITERACY IN RURAL AND URBAN AREA OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Abstract

Literacy and educational attainment are primary indicators of social development. In world scenario spread of literacy is generally associated with importance of modern civilization such as modernization, urbanization, industrialization, communication and commerce. It acts as a medium for social upliftment enhancing the profits on investments made in almost every aspects of development effort, be it population control, health, environmental degradation control, hygiene, empowerment of women and weaker section of the society. The process of development involves a significant change in the economic activities over different regions along with a change in the structure of the economy. The trends in literacy are analytical of the rate at which the life and economy of a particular society is being altered. West Bengal is mainly a rural state where education continues to have little economic and social relevance. Male literacy is also higher than female literacy in urban areas as compared to male literacy because the cities and towns have a large number of male immigrants who are educated; towns and cities attract large number of male students. The male-female literacy difference as well as rural-urban literacy difference is witness to be highly variable throughout the state. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the trends of differential in literacy rate, spatial patterns of urban-rural differential and the relationship between differential index using the method of Index of urban-rural differential in literacy of among the districts of West Bengal. Only one district namely Uttar Dinajpur falls in High differential literacy rate category. The reasons for these differentials are the low level of urbanization, primarily traditional agricultural economy and high concentration of socio-economically backward sections of the society, inadequate educational infrastructure and late start of educational in rural areas. Differential index is lowest in Purba Medinipur due to urban-rural gap in terms of literacy is minimizing continuously due to increasing educational facilities in these rural areas and the rural population is more aware about the benefit of literacy