Strategies to encourage rural female students in the agriculture educationagricultural education

APCESS Project No 0182076

Investigators

D. Rama Rao

N. Sandhya Shenoy

V. Rasheed Sulaiman

National Academy of Agricultural Research Management

Hyderabad-500030

National Research Centre for Agricultural Economics and PolicyResearch, New Delhi-110012

2005

SheShe who ever had remained in the depth of my being,

in the twilight of gleams and of glimpses;

she who never opened her veils in the morning light,

will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song. Words have wooed yet failed to win her;

persuasion has stretched to her its eager arms in vain. I have roamed from country to country keeping her in the core of my heart,

and around her have risen and fallen the growth and decay of my life. Over my thoughts and actions, my slumbers and dreams,

she reigned yet dwelled alone and apart. Many a man knocked at my door and asked for her

and turned away in despair. There was none in the world who ever saw her face to face,

and she remained in her loneliness waiting for thy recognition.

Rabindranath Tagore

CONTENTS

SNo / Topic / Page no.
Contents / ii
Preface / iii
Executive summary / iv
Introduction / 1
Agricultural manpower development / 6
Research design / 14
Issues of women in agricultural education / 19
Survey results and discussion / 26
Perceptions and opinions / 53
Issues, strategies and recommendations / 60
References / 67
Annexures / 74
Abbreviations / 139

Preface

Agriculture plays an important role in Indian economy. Human resource planning is an essential element for achieving sustained growth. It attempts to maintain the equilibrium between the demand emanating from various sectors of employment. The supply constitutes the graduating personnel from the universities. The employment sectors seek agricultural graduates with diverse goals and demand specific skills.

In the present study a survey was conducted to identify the issues relating to enrolment of rural girls into agricultural education and to develop appropriate educational strategies for state agricultural universities. The survey includes seeking responses through a structured questionnaire and formal and informal discussions with students in schools, students in agricultural colleges, professionals, farmers and officials from various sectors associated with agriculture and rural development. Results from both these quantitative and qualitative aspects are analysed and integrated. The outputs provided insight into the systems changes required to encourage more girls from villages into agri-education. The likely impact of various issues and policies are also explored. We hope the results will provoke discussion and further research into the complex area of educational planning. The study identifies educational strategies to improve proportion of rural girls in SAUs in the future.

We are thankful to many individuals who have assisted us directly or indirectly in completion of this study. We are grateful to Dr J C Katyal, Deputy Director General (Education), ICAR; Dr S.P.Tiwari, Director, NAARM for the support extended throughout the study. We owe special thanks to faculty colleagues for their valuable comments and suggestions. We sincerely thank the senior executives of various government, private agencies and agricultural universities for providing the information and sparing their time for discussions.

We record our appreciation to the support extended by Dr (Mrs) N. Sunanda, Mr Badruddin and Ms. Mrunal, research staff of the project, in data collection, analysis and preparation of the report and Mr K V Kumar in the statistical analysis of the data. We thank Ms G. Aneeja for the editorial corrections, Mr Ramadas and Ms. Mercy for the secretarial assistance in typing the manuscript and data entry, Mr P. Namdev for the cover design and the press team for printing the report.

D Rama Rao, N. Sandhya Shenoy and V. Rasheed Sulaiman

Investigators

Executive Summary

Women’s participation in science is increasing world over. The proportion of girls in SAUs varied from 49.3 per cent in Kerala to 5 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. Though the number of girl students joining agricultural courses is on rise, there is concern as bulk of these students are coming from urban areas. Women agriculture professionals had greater access to both farm women and farm communities as compared to their male counterparts and thus aid in better technology transfer. Considering the socio-cultural aspects, there is a need to encourage and increase girl students from rural areas as they are more tuned to serve in rural areas. Keeping this felt need, the project was initiated with an objective to assess growth of girl students in agricultural education and develop strategies to enhance participation of girl students from rural areas. The project was carried out jointly by NAARM and NCAP, New Delhi.

The study was carried out in ten agricultural universities in India, viz. AAU in Gujarat, NDUAT in Uttar Pradesh, HAU in Haryana, MPUAT in Rajasthan, MAU in Maharashtra, RAU in Bihar, IGKVV in Raipur, UAS-D in Karnataka, ANGRAU in AP and OUAT in Orissa. Resource persons nominated by agricultural universities provided the data and also assisted in the survey work. Three questionnaires were designed to get the requisite information from agricultural students, agricultural professionals and school students to capture information on issues such as education, family, social, and economic backgrounds, employment concerns and on some specific issues pertaining to girls’ participation in agricultural education. The sample of 712 respondents comprised of school students (185), agricultural students (262) and professionals (265) from ten state agricultural universities and their adjacent areas.

Brainstorming sessions were conducted at seven SAUs to solicit opinions of professionals from the university, state departments and NGOs. The senior executives of selected SAUs, state departments, NGOs, girl students in rural schools and farmers have been approached for their opinions on factors affecting women in higher education.

Issues emerged from the project are:

  • Agriculture education as a subject may be introduced at school level as it has relevance to nearly two-thirds population dependent on agriculture.
  • Special incentives are to be provided for rural students.
  • Due consideration in transportation, accommodation and security would encourage girls into agricultural education.
  • Motivation by trained personnel would impart confidence to rural students and parents on agri-education.
  • Girls by virtue of their patience, hardworking nature, credibility of work, understanding nature, communication skills and decision making ability are better agents for effective transfer of technology.
  • Social constraints for girls’ education include family pressures, lack of transportation facilities and inhibitions arising due to societal sanctions to harness their potential.
  • Agricultural education was considered to be relatively cheap; have less employment opportunities; earn less; doesn’t have equal status in society; and jobs need working in rural areas.
  • Lack of openings for women graduates in the private sector.
  • Existing syllabus to be modified to suit the needs of employment requirements with inclusion of entrepreneur and management skills.

Recommended strategies

  • NARS institutions need to undertake career counseling at the secondary level to motivate students from rural schools to take up higher agricultural education.
  • ICAR to come forward with an action plan for implementation of the government policy of promoting science education for women in the form of fellowships, scholarships and other types of financial support.
  • ICAR need to take proactive step in identifying and strengthening quality of vocational agricultural education. It can offer incentives in the lines or even better than UGC for colleges offering such identified courses.
  • Establishment of agricultural colleges and polytechnics near rural areas and relaxation in qualifying marks or reservation for rural students. Re-orienting the agricultural course according to the present employment needs is a priority and Diploma course needs to be introduced to enhance skills and market their services after attaining training in need based, location specific areas. Accommodation facilities to be specifically provided for girl students, also at polytechnics.
  • Campaign for creating awareness regarding the scope of agricultural education through various communication media. ICAR can initiate and organise this campaign on the lines of national literacy campaign on Television and Radio.
  • The country needs National Council for Agricultural Education to prepare agricultural education for the new millennium. Develop national action plans and enhance investment in basic education and higher education significantly to make them more accessible to rural students. Implement integrated strategies for gender concern in education. Such a national body will be able to initiate policy action and many strategies mentioned above.

The implementation of the above recommendations should also lead towards a larger number of women graduates in the work force with sizeable number of policy makers and implementers in agriculture.

1

Strategies to encourage rural female students in the agriculture educationagricultural education

Chapter-I

Introduction

1.1Background

Women’s participation in science in general and agriculture in particular, is increasing world over. Increasing participation of women can be seen in developing countries as evidenced by significant increase in number of graduate women in agriculture in Malaysia (Jaraiah-Masud, 1994), Iran (Ali Reza, 1996), India (Rama Rao and Sandhya Shenoy, 1998), Philippines (Brush et al, 1995) and Indonesia (Hubeis,1994).

During 1981, the country has about 73,133 agricultural graduates, out of which 0.4 per cent were women (DST, 1990). However, in the recent past, the number of girl students joining agricultural courses is on rise and their number in employment too rose to about 6.3 per cent of the agricultural graduates in 1995 (Rama Rao and Sandhya Shenoy, 1998). This increase in number has brought new dimension in employment and development.

There is a concern on increasing number of students from urban areas in agricultural courses. Some recent studies indicated that women of urban background had advantage for formal education in agriculture (Rama Rao and Sandhya Shenoy, 1998). However, the rural students who are aware of practical know-how of agricultural situation, if equipped with the latest technologies would help in effective implementation of the research findings. It is opined that that women are good communicators and educators for farmwomen. Women agriculture professionals had greater access to both farmwomen and farm communities as compared to their male counterparts and thus aid in better technology transfer (Prasad, 1993). Therefore, it is necessary to find the magnitude and the ways to bring greater influx from the rural sector, as the students from rural backgrounds are more tuned to serve in rural areas.

1.2 Issues in school education

There is large body of research on girls’ education in school and general education, but limited research on professional education, particularlyagricultural education. A brief overview of the research thrust and its outcome is described below.

In many developing countries girls are often considered as a source of household labour who will leave their families upon marriage and become part of the labour force of another family. Boys, on the other hand, are expected to provide support to their families, when they become adults. Thus, some sections of the rural poor feel it economically sound to invest in the education of boys than in that of girls, particularly where money for education and basic necessities are scarce. Moreover, women generally command fewer opportunities and lower salaries in the labour market and therefore they feel investment in girls’ education is less beneficial than that of boys. For cultural reasons, parents from rural areas do not send girls to study under male instructors or in mixed gender classes. The lack of women instructors and girls only schools thus becomes an obstacle to girls’ participation in schools. Lack of transport affects women more than male as mobility of women is restricted (FAO, 2005).

In India, the rural girls are kept busy at home in sibling and household care, in fetching fuels, fodder and water or in earning a day’s wage. Therefore the problem for education of women is not only access, uniform curriculum and provision of education facilities, but also a problem that is closely related with tradition and socioeconomic structure of the society (Nagarajan, 2005).

Educated women lead to the advancement of the economy as they promote the social, physical, health and wellbeing of their families and communities. Family factors such as conservative parental attitudes, involvement as family labour, and lower socio-economic status act as hindrances to girls’ education. This was the case in many developing countries, in which the societal expectations placed on girls due to patrilineal family structures, custom and culture. The concept of universal marriage impeded the progress of girls toward higher education in Africa (Kwesiga Joy, 2002).

In rural areas, the education system suffers from absenteeism, high drop out rate specially among girls, over crowding, lack of teachers, lack of transport and poor infrastructure. This is mainly due to lack of education among the earlier generations. Absence of joyful learning (edutainment) and also long distance of the school from residence of the children also affect education for rural students (Gramayan, 2005).

In India, very conspicuous gender disparities persist in all the educational indicators, especially with regard to enrolment and retention at the primary, upper primary and higher levels of schools education. The situation is much worse in rural and tribal areas due to social attitudes, poor access to education, and family oriented role and responsibilities of the girl child (Indian NGOs, 2005).

Major focus in developing countries was on girls’ education at school, India being no exception. The National Policy of Education (NPE, 1992)laid emphasis on women’s participation in vocational, technical and professional education based on the finding that for every 100 girls enrolled in primary education in rural areas, only one girl continued till Class XII. The low pace of growth of enrollment of adolescent girls of down trodden sections in rural areas is due to the traditional societal inhibitions against their free movement outside the family precincts and also against their education particularly beyond the elementary stage. Hence, the NPE made a special resolve to encourage non-government and voluntary effort in management of education by providing financial assistance for strengthening boarding/hostel facilities for girl students of high/higher secondary schools (GOI, 2005).

To encourage girls’ participation in school, Government of India recently made school education free in all the centrally supported schools. Such schemes were already in force in states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, etc. As education is State subject in India, various state governments have launched variety of schemes and interventions to promote girls education to retain them in the schools and to encourage increased enrolment in colleges (Anonymous, 2000). The Government of Haryana has earmarked Rs6.5 million for provision of common rooms for girl students in all colleges to improve the mental outlook and health of the students. In addition, it would also establish development centers for women to create an awakening on gender discrimination (Anonymous, 2005).

1.3 Issues in higher education

Although government encourages girls in education, they are discriminated in employment (Parikh and Sukhatme, 1992; Rama Rao and Sandhya Shenoy, 1998). In spite of negative pressures, the enrollment of girls is on rise in all streams of science and technology (Statistical Abstract, 2002).

Bell and Fritz (2005) made a comparison of deterrents to college bound boys and girls enrollment in secondary agricultural education in US. The major obstacles encountered by the students while opting for higher education are peer pressure, parental pressure, lack of role model and lack of information on the career opted. The parents and high school teachers exert influence on the career choice of students. Mother is more influential than father especially in case of girl students’ choice for higher education. Majority of the secondary students perceived agricultural career to be boring, hard work with poor pay, involve more muscle than brain and more outdoor jobs and hence attract more men than women. Most of the students were negatively influenced by already enrolled students on lack of employment opportunities. Added to this, lack of career information about both traditional and non-traditional employment opportunities for women in agricultural sector, lack of counselor service and supportive network deters girl students to join agricultural course.

Decline in enrollment in agricultural education in Australia was related to negative perception of high school students on career in agriculture, as they are not aware of career opportunities in agriculture and equate agriculture career to farming alone (Cecchettini et al, 2005).

1.4 Issues in agriculture profession

The UNESCO/Commonwealth Secretariat study on Women in Higher Education Management (UNESCO, 1998) identified the principal barriers preventing participation of women due to limited access to higher education, stresses of dual family and professional roles, family attitudes, career interruptions and cultural stereotyping.

In the developed countries, the proportion of working women has increased to the level of workingmen (Ester Barbera et al, 2000) and the women issues are focused on representation of women in science and technology and also in the newly emerging sectors (Kennedy, 1991; Schmitt and Ziche, 1989; Paret, 1991; Goering, 1990). Low involvement of women in management have been ascribed to various factors such as economic development by Adler and Izraeli (1988); participation in labour force and education by Antal and Izraeli (1993); gender role and career choice by Konard and Cannings (1994); and organisational culture, processes and policies by Alvesson and Billing (1997). A complex interaction of these factors holds women back from top positions.

Rajeswari (1995) in a Department of Science Technology survey reported that the proportion of women in science technology management as 1.1 per cent. In Indian corporate sector, less than two per cent mangers are women (COSMODE, 2000). Low participation was ascribed to socio-cultural determinants (Sunita Singh, 2000); and male stereotyping, exclusion from informal networks and lack of management experience (Kalpana Sinha, 2000). On the whole, few women reach management positions of real authority and significance.