Comparative Study of Male Female Disparity in Literacy of Purulia and North 24 Parganas District in West Bengal

The present article focuses on a comparative study of the male-female disparity in literacy of two districts Purulia and North 24 Parganas in West Bengal, India. The Census data of 2011 has been used in this regard. The literacy rate has been calculated for the population above six-year, and Sopher’s Disparity index (1974) has been applied to measure the male-female disparity in literacy. The study examines the block-level male-female disparity in literacy among non-Schedule Caste (none-SC ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The study highlights that North 24 Parganas is far ahead in terms of literacy than Purulia district. However, there is wide variation in block-level male-female disparity in literacy among the three-caste groups in both the districts. In block-level, the Bundwan block of Purulia district and Barasat-I and Deganga block of North 24 Parganas district occupies a remarkable place in terms of the male-female disparity in literacy among each three-caste group. Conversely, Jhalda-II block in Purulia and Hingalganj block of North 24 Parganas is the most backward block in terms of the male-female disparity in literacy among the all-caste groups. Although the Central and the State Government have taken various schemes to enhance literacy rates and eliminated the male-female disparity in education, more suitable steps need to be followed to implement appropriate measures towards education, especially for the women and other marginalised sections of the society.


Introduction
Literacy is a crucial element for the development of a country (Chattoraj & Chand, 2015). Literacy plays a significant role in increasing human capital, and it removes inequalities from society in almost all respect (Kumar et al. 2016). Literacy is one of the leading indicators of progress in society. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defined literacy as "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with the varying context. Literacy involves a process of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals to develop his or her knowledge and potential and to participate fully in the wider society" (Barman & Chouhan, 2017). Women in any nation are the mirror of their civilization. They are a valuable part of society. The position of women in society is the index of the standard of social organization. There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved (Biswas, 2017). In India, women face prejudice at every level in society; they are not treated as equal with men, socially, culturally, educationally, economically, or politically, and as a result, they go down far behind men in almost all spheres of life (Kumar et al. 2016). India ranks 132 out of 187 countries on the gender inequality index, which indicates the backwardness of women in our society (Maji & Sarkar, 2018). Gender disparity in literacy is one of the significant problems in our country. However, female literacy has been rising over the last few decades and as a result, gender disparity in literacy is continuously declining. As per the Census 2011, the malefemale literacy gap of India is approximately 16.68 percent; though, it was 24.84 and 21.59 percent in the Census year 1991 and 2001 (Majhi & Sarkar, 2019). Thus, the study of literacy level, gender gap, spatial distribution, trends and patterns are being taken as one of the catalytic parts for a population geographer. The investigation of geographical dissimilarity of the male-female disparity in literacy helps to recognize the areas with the deficit, which can help the policymakers to take proper developmental measures for those regions (Mundhe et al. 2017

Objectives
Objectives of the study are as follows: 1. To examine the district wise spatial variation in literacy rate of West Bengal.

Study Area
The study area consists of North 24 Parganas and Purulia district of West Bengal. North 24 Parganas is located in the southeastern part of West Bengal, the latitudinal extension is from 22°11'6'' N to 23°15'2'' N and longitudinal extension are from 88°20' E to 89°5' E. and the total area is 4,094 square kilometres as per the 2011 census. Purulia district is located in the western part of West Bengal, the latitudinal and longitudinal extension are from 22°42'35'' N to 23°42'00''N and longitudinal extent is from 85°49'25" E to 86°54'37" E respectively and the total area is 6,259 square kilometres as per the 2011 census.

Database and Methodology
The present research work is based on secondary data obtained from the Census of India website (https://censusindia.gov.in/). The literacy rate has been calculated for the population above six years. The male-female disparity in literacy is measured by using the Sopher

Comparative analysis of caste wise malefemale disparity in literacy of North 24 Parganas and Purulia district with the State average, 2011
The male-female disparity in literacy means gender inequality in education. The male-female disparity in literacy is calculated based on Sopher's Disparity Index formula. It measures the degree of gender disparity in literacy. Where the male-female disparity in literacy index is high, gender inequality will be high. On the other hand, if the index value is low, it illustrates the opposite condition. Figure 2 and       (Table  4). Based on the spatial variation of the non-SC ST male-female index value, the district has been divided into four broad categories. It can be easily observed from the Figure 5

Block-wise Schedule Tribe (ST) male-female disparity in literacy of Purulia and North 24 Parganas district, 2011
Likewise, the block-level non-SC ST and SC male-female disparity in literacy, there is also a wide difference in terms of block-level Schedule Tribe (ST) male-female disparity in literacy between Purulia and North 24 Parganas district. Figure-8

Conclusion
It may be concluded that there is a wide gap in male-female disparity in literacy between Purulia and North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. It is found that North 24 Parganas is far ahead than Purulia district in terms of male and female literacy among the non-Scheduled caste (non-SC ST), Scheduled Caste (SC), and Scheduled Tribe (ST). However, there is variation in male-female disparity at the block level in both districts. Besides, it is interesting to know that the blocks of North 24 Parganas, which are lagging behind in male-female disparity in literacy index value, are ahead of developed blocks of Purulia district. In Purulia, mainly in three blocks like Jhalda-II, Arsha and Baghmundi, the male-female disparity in literacy is high among non-Scheduled Caste (non-SC ST), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST). Whereas, three blocks of North 24 Parganas such as Sandeshkhali-II, Hingalganj and Barrackpur-I have high malefemale disparity in literacy among non-Scheduled caste, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. The geographical location may be the main cause of the educational disparities between these two districts. North 24 Parganas belongs to the fertile plains of the Gangetic delta, as well as the district is located near the capital city Kolkata. On the other hand, Purulia district is the westernmost district of West Bengal, which belongs to undulated topography and there is no metropolitan city nearby. It can also be said that Purulia district is socio-economically underdeveloped compared to North 24 Parganas. The Central Government of India and the State Government of West Bengal have started various schemes to uplift the literacy level; but still, the disparity in gender literacy is high. The Central and State Government should focus on the backward districts to eliminate malefemale disparity in literacy and should take adequate measures to increase the literacy rate in the marginalized section of the society.