Asian Journal of Home Science

Manjot Kaur ¹, Sukhdeep Kaur Mann ¹, Kanwaljit Kaur ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Extension Education and Communication Management, College of Home Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (Punjab), IN

Abstract

The Honorable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi has stated that “Today, the world and India need a skilled workforce. If we have to promote the development of our country then our mission has to be skill development’ and `Skilled India”. Skills and knowledge are the engines of economic growth and social development of any country. Women constituted almost 48.5 per cent of the total population of India, but their input to economic action is far beneath the potential. Female workforce participation rate in India stands at 31.8 per cent which is almost half of the male workforce participation rate at 73.2 per cent and these women have also been paid very low wages for the same work as compare to the men due to lack of skills. Skill development among rural women is the necessity of the hour to make them self possessed, self reliant and to enischolar_main in them the ability to be a component of decision making at home and outside. Therefore, there is a great need to properly skill the significantly large work force so that they can became a major part of the economy. Skill development is a key to women empowerment as it leads to enhancing household productivity, employability and income earning opportunities for women. The idea of skill development in India has been greatly acknowledged and programmes and policies like Pradhan Mantra Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), UDAAN, Standard Training Assessment and Reward (STAR) and many more has been formulated to initiate this concept. Despite the various efforts by the government, there is yet a prolong way to bring the skill development mission to accomplish due to existence of various obstacles in the path of rural women. So, there is great need to identify various obstacles faced by the rural women and ways of facilitating skill development among rural women.

Keywords

Rural Woman, Empowerment, Skill Development.

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Manjot Kaur ¹, Kanwaljit Kaur ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Extension Education and Communication Management, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana (Punjab), IN

Abstract

Empowerment is a process that makes women understand her unique potential and enables her to break barriers to make her realize that she has the capacity to utilize her full potential. But it is unfortunate that because of centuries of inertia, ignorance and conservation, the actual and potential role of women in the society has been ignored. Study was conducted to measure empowerment of rural women in terms of socio-psychological and economic empowerment after getting training from selected Krishi Vigyan Kendras of Punjab namely Bathinda, Ferozpur, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Saheed Bhagat Singh (SBS) Nagar. All long duration vocational training courses conducted by these Krishi Vigyan Kendras for women from year 2009-2013 were included in the study. A sample of 140 trainees was drawn by applying probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling method and data were collected personally from the selected trainees by using an interview schedule. The findings of the study revealed that even after getting training from Krishi Vigyan Kendras the socio-psychological and economic empowerment level of majority of the trainees was low. Age, social participation and mass media exposure of trainees had positively and significant relationship with the level of empowerment while education had negative but significant relationship with the level of empowerment. So there is a need to impart socio-psychological and economic empowerment aspect to women trainees during the training programme through different strategies.

Keywords

Empowerment, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Vocational Trainings, Rural Women.

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