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Indian women, who had been respected in medieval India but instead were ignored many decades ago, are now receiving more attention. In India, considerable progress has been achieved in this area, but there is still much more to be done. Tribal society lags in terms of education and social and economic advancement, making it difficult for them to integrate into today's "men-dominated" world. Because of the co-relation and low adoption of educational technology, most people in tribal areas are backward. Tribal communities are secluded, isolated cultures that live in small groups. To some extent, this type of rural development education was attempted even before independence, as part of the community experts to develop the Programme. Education, on the other hand, has been restricted to a few sectors and projects, with extension services developed exclusively to conduct state or national-level plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do states realize social reforms for marginalized groups in settings of entrenched inequality? This article argues that reform implementation is a conflict‐ridden process driven by the institutional activism of street‐level bureaucrats. Through an ethnographic case study of Mahila Samakhya, a novel government program for women's empowerment in Uttar Pradesh, India, I find that local fieldworkers committed to reform promoted girls' education by mobilizing marginalized citizens and mediating local conflicts. Organizational processes of gender‐based training and deliberation enabled fieldworkers to challenge village patriarchy and exclusion and forge programmatic ties with lower caste women. By altering rules to address the practical needs of households, fieldworkers effectively integrated disadvantaged girls into the education system. Institutional activism also engendered conflicts over rules within the bureaucracy, prompting senior officials to advocate for marginalized groups. The findings suggest that institutional commitment to activism is critical for agencies working on the front lines of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millions of rural households in India lack access to clean basic lighting which hampers the ability of children to study during dark hours. Over 81 million students are likely to be dependent on kerosene lamps for basic lighting. Despite programmes focusing on disseminating solar lanterns since the last three decades, penetration is limited owing to three main barriers: affordability, absence of after-sales services and unavailability in rural markets. This paper presents the localization-affordability-saturation (LAS) model that addresses these main barriers by bringing together three institutional spheres - government, corporate and NGOs for speedy upscaling. This paper illustrates experiences and challenges that have emerged from field testing of the model through Million Solar Urja Lamp Programme while disseminating 1,000,000 solar study lamps to rural school children residing in more than 10,000 villages in India. Though implemented successfully, applicability of LAS model can be hindered due to dependence on subsidies, bottlenecks in local manufacturing infrastructure, absence of market mechanism and its relevance in providing complete lighting solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The utilization of restorative dental care is very scarce in rural India. Association between level of education and health of a person has been well-documented in many countries and time periods with a range of potential factors shaping the connection between both.Objectives: This cross-sectional survey was conducted to evaluate an association between the level of education (educational qualification) and utilization of restorative dental care among rural women associated with self-help groups.Materials and Methods: A semi-structured questionnaire was administrated to 660 rural women associated with self-help group by trained research assistants. The 604 completed questionnaires were received and reviewed. The education levels were divided into three groups: Group 1 - illiterates (17.2%), Group 2 - school educated (69.4%), and Group 3 - college educated (13.4%). Chi-square test was applied to evaluate the utilization of dental services by rural women, and logistic regression was applied to evaluate the influence of their educational qualifications on utilization.Results: A total of 604 properly filled questionnaires out of 660 (91.51% response rate) were included in the analysis. Only 56.9% of the sampled rural women indicated that they have visited dentists earlier. The maximum number of individuals who have never visited the dentist belonged to illiterate group (55.7%), and the association was statistically significant (0.004) when compared with educated individuals.Conclusion: The results of this study concluded that the level of education has a significant influence on the utilization of dental care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly recognized that there is a global learning crisis. This article investigates this learning crisis through a comparative analysis of rural India and Pakistan. Using data from each country's Annual Status of Education Report, it demonstrates that socioeconomic status and gender are important determinants of whether children are in school, the type of school they attend, and whether they are learning. While learning varies across schools, socioeconomic disparities predominate: disadvantaged children in private schools are learning less than more advantaged children in government schools. Gender also plays an important role, with disparities between boys and girls most pronounced among poorer children in Pakistan. In addition, while private tuition improves learning for all children, it does not resolve socioeconomic and gender disparities. The study indicates that policymakers need to focus on government schools since that is where most of the poorest children study and where learning levels are lowest. The fact that more advantaged children are learning in government schools indicates the role that such schools can play in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the findings of a research study which traced 56 rural women learners 15 years after they had participated in an empowerment and education programme in North India. It attempts to understand, from the perspectives of women from marginalised communities, the ways in which participating in the programme had been empowering for them, or not. While most of the women were indeed able to transform several areas in their lives, this study illustrates that empowering outcomes cannot be assumed or articulated in categorical terms and that bringing about change requires the negotiation of power at various levels. The women's narratives stand in contrast to the prevalent discourses around women's literacy and empowerment, which highlight the importance of literacy only in terms of its positive impact on attaining development goals. Despite the vigorously discussed de-politicisation of the concept of empowerment, the authors show in this paper that empowerment, when informed by a critical feminist understanding, continues to provide a useful framework to analyse women's experiences related to education, as a process enabling women to understand and negotiate structures of power - which are neither static nor wholly dominating - and to find spaces to exercise agency. There are few longitudinal studies which trace the long-term impact of educational programmes on adult women, and most studies are in the nature of impact assessments of programmes. Through this paper the authors argue for the need to analyse the complexities around the relationship between women's education and empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]