80% of rural parents wish to see their kids finish college
Most parents in rural India wish to see their daughters as well as sons get college education, as per a pan-India survey conducted by Transform Rural India’s Development Intelligence Unit.
About 80 percent of parents in Indian villages want to see their schoolgoing children become at least college graduates, regardless of the child’s gender. The inclination of rural parents to see their daughters as well as sons get college education was revealed in the ‘State of Elementary Education in Rural India’ – a survey conducted by the Development Intelligence Unit (DIU), a collaboration between Transform Rural India (TRI) and Sambodhi Research and Communications across 21 states of India.
The study was unveiled by Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union Minister of Education, as part of TRI’s India Rural Colloquy – A Rural Renaissance event in New Delhi on August 8.
According to the survey report, 82 percent of parents of boys and 78 percent of parents of girls wanted to educate their children to graduation and beyond.
“I look forward to learning new things about the state of education in India through this report,” Pradhan said while unveiling the report, emphasising upon the need to include male and female voices in equal measure in all such studies.
“India as a centuries-old civilisation has history of knowledge interpretation and documentation. From then to today’s National Education Policy, the fundamentals have remained the same — that knowledge travels through ideas, language and form. About 80% brain development of a child is completed between the ages of 3 and 8 years. The NEP aims to strengthen this foundational setup. Knowledge gaining should not be linked to social prestige and status,” Pradhan added.
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Bridging of the social divide was apparent during the survey too. There was no difference observed in expectations among parents from different social groups, with most parents from all categories wanting their child to have at least a college degree. No difference was made by the parents’ educational background either. While 54.3 percent of parents who completed secondary education said they desired a college degree for their children, 44.2 percent of illiterate parents shared the same wish. A similar pattern emerged for the income levels of the parents with 48.5 percent and 49.6 percent of parents belonging to non-earner and low-income categories wanting their children to finish college as compared to 52.6 percent and 48.2 percent of parents belonging to high-income and middle-income categories.
“The report also noted that the finding, which indicates no disparity in parental aspirations concerning the education of their children, calls for continued efforts to promote inclusive education,” said Javed Siddiqui, Lead, Education at Transform Rural India. “This will ensure sustainable opportunities for boys and girls alike.”
As per the report, only about 4 percent of parents surveyed wanted to see their children study merely up to elementary school level, the figure being almost the same for boys and girls. The numbers dropped for aspiration of education up to secondary school level (2.4 percent for boys and 2.8 percent for girls). For higher secondary education, more parents of girls were keen (15 percent) as compared to boys (11 percent).
“This highly positive sign has the potential to further strengthen educational growth in the rural sector. We hope that our policymakers, educational institutions, and other stakeholders will acknowledge these common aspirations to establish an inclusive environment that ensures growth and development for every child in rural India,” Siddiqui added.
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The survey included responses from 6,229 parents, among whom 6,135 had school-going students in the age group of 6-16 years while 56 had students who dropped out of school and 38 had children who had never enrolled in school.
The India Rural Colloquy 2023 featured over 100 thought leaders – in development, culture, business and other sectors – in about 25 conversations in New Delhi, Bhopal, Ranchi and Raipur. The event aims to bring people together in hopes of finding actionable solutions to the challenges facing rural India.
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The lead image at the top shows children attending an anganwadi school at a village in Bhadrak, Odisha (Photo from Shutterstock)
Pallavi Srivastava is Associate Director, Content, at Village Square.
