Rural India

1. Submitted by:
Saroj Devi,
Assistant Professor, Sai College of Education,
Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

2.  Gender Barrier: Due to gender bias, girls get
less opportunities in access to education in
rural areas.
 Linguistic Barrier: The students of rural areas
face English language as a barrier to learning
which restricted their learning capabilities and
future progress.
 Technology Barrier: Low usage of technology
(computer and internet) in studies.

3.  Unearth the reasons for gender bias for girls
and boys of 9th to 12th grade and its impact on
the learning outcomes.
 Evaluate the impact of linguistic (English)
barrier on learning process
 To examine the influence of lack of access to
technology (Computers and Internet) on the
educative activities run in the schools.

4.  There is no significant difference in gender
barriers with respect to girls and boys
responses.
 Language is a barrier (English as second
language) to learning for rural area students.
 There is a low usage of technology (Computers
and internet) for the purpose of studies (9th to
12th grade students) in rural areas

5.  The sample collected from 9th to 12th grade
students in the rural areas of the Punjab
(Hoshiarpur) and Himachal (Una) area of
Northern India.
 Purposive sample of 50 students (25 boys and
25 girls ) and snowball sample of parents and
teachers were taken.
 Self constructed questionnaire and Focus
Group Discussion were used to obtain data. t-
test and percentile used for the interpretation
of data.

6.  The below table shows the results of independent sample t-test. There is a
statistically significant difference between female students (M = 3.64),
and male students (M= 2.56), t (50) = 7.091 and p<.05. Since, the p-value
is less than 0.05, null hypothesis HO has been rejected.
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
Girls Boys
3.64
2.56
Gender

7.  This study reveals that a very large majority of the students in rural areas are
facing challenges due to lack of fluency in the English language. The below chart
shows the study results on English as a barrier to learning 62% of the students
found it as a high level and 38% as an average level barrier.
Average
38%
High
62%
linguistic

8. Nearly 70% students do not use technology for the purpose of study. The ratio of
computer and students is poor and the computer classes are not taught at an early
stage in the schools. The students have little computer skills and don’t know how
to use MS office, internet for assignments, presentations and projects
Low
70%
Average
30%
Technology

9. Educational Implications of the study:
• There is a need to improve educational awareness among
the parents.
• A huge focus on girl child’s education is required to combat
the gender bias.
• There is a need to improve the English language and
computer skills of teachers.
• There is a need to increase access to computers and internet
in the school
• There is a need to improve teaching methods for English as
a second language both at the primary and secondary levels.
• Educators need to focus on “Learning by doing”.

10. Indian Governments (both at the center and
state levels), Non Government Organizations,
Educators and others need to work together to
improve the education conditions.
It is essential to involve all the stakeholders of
the society at all stages of policy making ,
implementation and evolution in order to
achieve the universal education goal by 2030.