Understanding Education and Its Role in Empowerment

Education plays a catalytic role in the socio-economic development of a nation. It enables the upliftment and transformation of a society by empowering weaker sections to take hold of their circumstances, overcome limitations, and change their life for the better. Education has acquired a place of importance in the development agenda of India. India has toiled to increase its literacy rate from approximately 18% in 1951 to 74% in 2011 (GoI 2011). While there has been a surge in the rate of literacy, it is pertinent to note that opportunities for both education and development have not been distributed evenly across the country. While education enables the oppressed to get empowered and overcome inequalities in society, the process of education has by itself internalised some of these inequalities, thereby reinforcing and reproducing them (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). Thus, the relationship between education and empowerment is not linear.

Education and Empowerment in India: Policies and Practices, edited by Avinash Kumar Singh, is a rich and thought-provoking volume that explores the linkages between education and empowerment of the disadvantaged sections of Indian society, including women, minorities, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). It examines changes in educational policies pertaining to the marginalised sections, since independence, and analyses some innovative educational projects in India aimed at spreading education among them. The book is a compilation of papers authored by distinguished academics and scholars in the field of education and presented at a research seminar named after Anil Bordia, a strong advocate of and contributor to the empowerment of the marginalised through education.