Does cultural economics affect country’s competitiveness?

Abstract

Education is a key factor in socio-economic development. People are both ends and means of economic development. Economic development aims at improving quality of human life. In order to develop human resources in a better way it is important that education is imparted to all sections of population in the country so that all people can have opportunity of participating in education, irrespective of one’s caste, class, sex, religion or region. However, despite these provisions, it has been noticed that the spread of education is not uniform and there are disparities of all kinds in this field. These include gender disparities (i.e. male female disparities), regional disparities (inter district disparities), social disparities (disparities between SC, ST and other sections) and spatial disparities (rural urban disparities). The development of Punjab has been uneven. Addressing relative deprivations amongst regions and people in education is a serious concern of human development. The challenge for Punjab is to derive its growth targets from those achieved by the developed nations and in some cases, from India’s other states. The objective of the present study is to analyses the regional and gender disparities. Finally, study suggested that for removal of gender disparity, there is need to increase number of girls’ schools, girls’ colleges and female teachers . There is also need of structural changes such as removal of cultural barriers against women’s access to education, employment and equal involvement in family decision making. Study also suggest that each district should take steps to improve education status of their districts.

Keyword : Gender inequality, Education, Regional Imbalance