Educational Development-A Study of the Perception of Panchayati Raj Representatives of Haryana

Holistic development of any country mainly depends upon an effective education system. In developing country like India, it is all the more important for social and economic growth. Development without quality education development remains incomplete and does not serve its purpose. It is, therefore, essential to provide quality education to the rural youth by providing infrastructure at par with the urban areas. Apart from the centre and state government, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) have a crucial role in the educational development in their respective areas. The 2016 elections of PRIs in Haryana, educational qualification was required for contesting these. It has been hypothesized that educated Panchayati Raj representatives, who have been elected in 2016 elections are more likely to be interested in education development than those who were uneducated. An attempt has been made in this paper to test the validity of this hypothesis by finding out the responses of the newly elected Sarpanches of the Gram Panchayats of Haryana. It has, however, been limited to only two out of 22 districts of Haryana namely Mewat and Panchkula. We have compared the responses of Sarpanches caste category wise, education level wise and gender wise to find out the correlation if any in this context. It has been found that 40 per cent Sarpanches in Mewat mentioned the issues of educational development as their first priority and only 10 per cent did not bother about it. In Panchkula district, only 21per cent Sarpanches mentioned educational development issues as their first priority and 29 per cent did not bother about it. Further, we have, in this paper made suggestions to enhance the level of education in the rural areas of these districts.