[ VOLUME 5 I ISSUE 3 I JULY– SEPT 2018] E ISSN 2348 –1269, PRINT ISSN 2349-5138 Disparity in the Level of Literacy and Factors affecting Female Literacy: A Case Study of Uttar Dinajpur District, West Bengal PINKI HIRA* & ANUPAM DAS** *Research Scholar, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal. **Assistant Professor, Department Of Geography, Panihati Mahavidyalaya, Sodepur, Kolkata. Received: May 24, 2018 Accepted: July 13, 2018 ABSTRACT Literacy is one of the prime socio-economic elements of modern society in a population that accelerates the social and economic development. Illiteracy, particularly among female in a society, results in stagnation of technology, social and cultural lags and overall economic progress. India today deeply faces Social, Economic, and Political threats which can be improved to a better state by enhancing the true education. The paper uses the data of two consecutive census reports, 2001 and 2011 ‘Primary Census Abstract (PCA) of West Bengal’ and calculates the gap in female and male literacy, disparity index between male female literacy both in rural and urban areas of Uttar Dinajpur district, and also assess the correlation of various socio economic variables on the female literacy rate in the district. Uttar Dinajpur was also the only district in West Bengal where the absolute number of illiterates exceeded the number of literates. In terms of male literacy rates too, Uttar Dinajpur occupied the lowest rank among the districts of West Bengal and was just one step ahead of lowest-ranked Purulia in terms of female literacy. While assessing the correlation three variables i.e. male literacy rate, percentage of urban population and mean household size were found to have statistically significant impact on the female literacy rate. So the improvement of literacy and educational performance deserve continuing priority in Uttar Dinajpur. An improvement in these variables as discussed here should be prime priority in the development planning for significant outcomes. Keywords: Correlation, Disparity Index, Female literacy, Illiteracy, Literacy rate, Socio Economic variables. 1. Introduction: Literacy and education is considered an important key indicator of human resource development. Illiteracy, on the other hand, takes away from man his dignity, perpetuates ignorance, poverty and mental isolation, deters peaceful and friendly international relations and hampers social advancement, economic growth and political maturity (Sawant and Athawale, 1994). The definition of literacy varies from one country to another country. According to UNESCO definition Literacy is the “ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute and written material associate with varying contracts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in inability individual to achieve their goal, to developed their knowledge and potential and to participate fully in their community and wider society”. According to Census of India, definition ‘Literacy’ means “a person who can read and write a simple message in any language with understanding is considered literate”. But there are a huge inequality found between male and female literacy. A recent study says that educating women is not a charity, it is a good economics and if developing nations are to be abolished poverty, they should enrich their women by education. Educating a man is educating a single person but educating a woman is educating a whole nation. Uttar Dinajpur district with high compound population growth at 2.56 percent per annum between 1991- 2001 (West Bengal 1.76% p.a.) and even faster rural population growth at 2.76 percent p.a. (West Bengal 1.58% p.a.), Uttar Dinajpur was the fastest growing district in the state in terms of its population. The district remains predominantly rural, with an urbanisation rate of just over 12 percent of the population in 2001 (West Bengal 28%). Uttar Dinajpur has had a strong bearing on the present state of education in the district. From the time it was constituted till its bifurcation in 1992, the erstwhile district of West Dinajpur had traditionally been a low literacy district in West Bengal. The bifurcation of West Dinajpur in 1992 brought its educationally backward areas under the new district of Uttar Dinajpur, subsequent to which the new district recorded overall literacy of 47.9 percent and female literacy of 36.5 percent in 2001. According 2011 Census data the total literacy rate of Uttar Dinajpur District is 80.73%. Out of which the male literacy rate is 74.48% and the female literacy rate is 67.58%. The present paper is an attempt to evaluate the educational development among females of the various C.D. Blocks of Uttar Dinajpur. 2. Objectives: The main purpose of this paper is to study: a. To study block wise decadal change of literacy rate from 2001 to 2011. b. To calculate the block wise disparity between male and female literacy levels. 96헒 IJRAR- International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews Research Paper [VOLUME 5 I ISSUE 3 I JULY – SEPT 2018] e ISSN 2348 –1269, Print ISSN 2349-5138 http://ijrar.com/ Cosmos Impact Factor 4.236 c. To identify disparity in literacy between male and female in urban-rural areas at block level. d. To assess the correlation of various socio economic variables on the female literacy rate in Uttar Dinajpur. 3. Study Area: Uttar Dinajpur or North Dinajpur is located northern part of the Indian state of West Bengal, it comprises two subdivisions- Raiganj and Islampur. It is situated between 25°11' to 26°49' North latitude and 87°49' to 90°00' East longitude. Its boundary lies in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri in the north; Malda, Dakshin Dinajpur in the south; Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Dinajpur districts of Bangladesh in the east and Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar districts of Bihar in the west. NH-27 and NH-12 pass through the heart of the district.The total geographical area of the district is 3142 sq. Km. Total population of the district is 3,000,849 and population density is 960/sq. Km. Uttar Dinajpur has a very large concentration of underprivileged social groups like Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as well as Muslims within its rural population. Hence the low rural literacy attainments in this district are strongly influenced by the extent of concentration of these underprivileged social groups. Fig. 1 In 2001, Uttar Dinajpur emerged as the least literate district in West Bengal in terms of the percentage of total literates. Uttar Dinajpur was also the only district in West Bengal where the absolute number of illiterates exceeded the number of literates. In terms of male literacy rates too, Uttar Dinajpur occupied the lowest rank among the districts of West Bengal and was just one step ahead of lowest-ranked Purulia in terms of female literacy. 4. Materials and Methods: The present study is based on the secondary data. The data about decadal change of literacy rate from 2001 to 2011, male and female literacy rate, urban and rural literacy rate from the years 2001 & 2011 are collect from the District Census Handbooks, Human development report of Uttar Dinajpur District. A large number of books, articles, various website, dissertations, published and unpublished works from different sources have been used. The data being mostly analyzed in Microsoft Excel and STATA 12. The analysis and inferences were finally carried out through textual and tabular formats followed by the description of the study results. C.D. Block wise spatial variation in literacy rates has been shown on maps by using Arc GIS. In mapping part, the maps were collected from District Census Handbook, Uttar Dinajpur, Village and Town Directory 2011. Literacy rate has been calculated by using the following formula: Number of Literates (above 6 years) Literacy rate (%) = --------------------------------------------------------x 100 Total population Sopher's Disparity Index (Sopher DIs, 1974) is a well-accepted measurement technique to identify the disparity between rural-urban literacy groups by using the following formula: DI = Log (X2 /X1) +Log (100 - X1) / (100 - X2) Research Paper IJRAR- International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews 97헒 [ VOLUME 5 I ISSUE 3 I JULY– SEPT 2018] E ISSN 2348 –1269, PRINT ISSN 2349-5138 However, the measurement technique of disparity as proposed by Sopher (1974), have several drawbacks as it does not satisfy the axioms of additive monotonicity, redistribution, repetitive transfers and multiplicative monotonicity (Kundu and Rao 1985). Therefore, Kundu and Rao (1985) suggested a modification to the Sopher's Index which satisfies all the four axioms. It is expressed as: DI = Log (X2 / X1) + Log (200 – X1) / (200 – X2) Where, DI = Disparity Index X2 = Percentage of Urban Literates. X1 = Percentage of Rural Literates. X2 is considered for Urban and X1 is considered for Rural literacy rate. 5. Result and Discussion: Spatio-temporal Changes in Total Literacy Rate: In the year 2001, the literacy rate for the study region as a whole was only 47.9 percent and in 2011, the total literacy rate was 59.1 percent (Table 1 and fig. 2). In the year 2001 this rate was higher (more than 50 percent) in Raiganj (51.5), Hemtabad (56.7), Kaliaganj (54.1) blocks. The proportion of literates was moderate i.e. between 35 to 50 percent in Itahar (47.4), Chopra (43.3), Islampur (38.4) and Karandighi (37.6) blocks, while it was very low (less than 35 percent) in Goalpokhar-I (31.6), Goalpokhar-II (34.1) blocks. As per 2011 Census, It is the highest (67.9 percent) for Hemtabad Block followed by Kaliaganj Block (66.5 percent) and Raiganj Block (63.5 percent) respectively. While it is low in Goalpokhar-II (46.1 percent) and Goalpokhar-I (42.3 percent) blocks. In Fig. 3 all the blocks of the district are arranged into four categories in descending order according to the Gap between 2011-2001 literacy rates i.e.