ABSTRACT
V ie w e d in the stark reality of statistics there is no more depressing fact in India to-day than the extent of illiteracy of women and the disparity in educational advance between men and women, a disparity which is even greater for Moslem women. The census for 1931 shows the percentage of literacy for men was 11-7, for women 1*9 per cent, and for Moslem women 1 • 2 per cent. This means that less than twenty women in general out of every thousand and only about twelve Moslem women in a thousand, can read and write.1 This appalling female illiteracy is understood when one realizes that only one girl out of every ten of school age attends school and two-thirds of all the girls in school go only one year, and hence have no chance of literacy; for permanent literacy is not possible under four years of primary education.2
