Technology (a) Education Education and health constitute the social sectors, and the status of education and health indicators are yardsticks for assessing the level of social development in a country. Literacy levels have increased in India from . % in to % in . Female literacy still lags behind the male literacy rate at % as compared to % among men.
There has been a great increase in the number of schools from the primary to senior high school level and in the growth of institutions of higher learning. In - there were . lakh primary and upper primary schools, . lakh secondary and higher secondary schools, , colleges and Central Universities, State Universities, Deemed Universities and State Private Universities in the country.
Children dropping out of school mostly belonged to the poorer families in rural and urban areas. The drop-out rate is particularly high among girl children. There are great inter-regional variations in the drop-out and enrolment rates, so that backward states and regions have the poorest record on school education. Various initiatives are being taken by the government to such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and the recently integrated scheme of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan to redress the issue of dropouts.
By the Eleventh Plan it had come down to less than %. The Second Plan ( – ), commonly referred to as the Mahalanobis Plan, stressed development of heavy industry for achieving economic growth. The share of industry in Plan outlay was only % in the First Plan, and increased to about % after the Second Plan. But the share has been declining since the Sixth Plan, perhaps because the major investments in the public sector had been completed.
The allocation for power development was very low in the first four plans and this created a huge shortage of power in the country. The first two Plans had set fairly modest targets of growth at about %, which economists described as the “Hindu rate of growth”. These growth rates were achieved so that the first two Plans were considered