Pattern of Literacy and Gender Gap in Bulandshahr District

Pattern of Literacy and Gender Gap in Bulandshahr District Afsha* and Dr. Mahjabeen** *Research Scholar **Assistant Professor Department of Geography, AMU, Aligarh Email: Literacy can be defined as the ability of people to read and write in a simple language, especially in mother language. Literacy is one of the most important skills when it comes to personal as well as cultural growth and development; therefore it is a key to socio-economic development in India. Importance of literacy has been increased in the present world because of the rapid change in society and the economy. However, a great disparity on the basis of gender has been seen in India as per the census 2011. The gender gap in literacy occurs when there are systematic differences in schooling level between men and women. This study is conducted in the Bulandshahr district at tehsil level. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze changes in literacy pattern, decadal growth rate and the gender gap in the literacy in Bulandshahr district. This paper is entirely based on secondary sources of data which are collected from different sources. Literacy rate in Bulandshahr district is 68.88 % in which female literacy rate is only 55.57 % as against the male literacy rate i. e.80.93 %. To find out the Tehsil wise pattern of literacy, the decadal growth rate of literacy has been calculated and ranking of each tehsil has been done to identify their position in the district. The gender gap has been calculated by drawing a comparison between 2001 and 2011 census. Statistical techniques that have been used in the analysis are, location quotient technique is used for the analysis of the concentration of female literacy and Gini coefficient technique is also applied to measure the degree of inequalities in literacy in terms of gender. ArcGIS 10 software is used for preparing maps. In this study, it has been found that there is a wide gender disparity in Bulandshahr District which is 25.36 % whereas it is highest in Siana and lowest in Bulandshahr at tehsil level i. e.28.08 % and 22.79 % respectively.