Hindus least educated religious group in world, says survey

[prasad1]

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Hindus continue to have the lowest level of educational attainment among all the major religions of the world despite having made strides in the sector, a Pew study said on Wednesday.
“Hindus have made substantial educational gains in recent decades. Hindu adults (ages 25 and older) in the youngest generation analysed in the study, for example, have an average of 3.4 more years of schooling than those in the oldest generation,” Pew said.
However, Hindus still have the lowest level of educational attainment of any major religious group in this study, which is topped by Jews.
Globally, the average is 5.6 years of schooling, and 41% of Hindus have no formal education of any kind. One in ten have post-secondary degrees, the report said.
At the same time, despite large gains by Hindu women across generations, Hindus still have the largest educational gender gap of any religious group, said the report titled ‘Religion and Education Around the World Large’ released by Pew Research Center.
In its report, running into 160 pages, Pew said Jews are more highly educated than any other major religious group around the world, while Muslims and Hindus tend to have the fewest years of formal schooling.
Drawing on census and survey data from 151 countries, the study also finds large gender gaps in educational attainment within some major world religions.
“For example, Muslim women around the globe have an average of 4.9 years of schooling, compared with 6.4 years among Muslim men. And formal education is especially low among Hindu women, who have 4.2 years of schooling on average, compared with 6.9 years among Hindu men,” the report said.
“On average, Hindu men have 2.7 more years of schooling than Hindu women, and just over half of Hindu women (53%) have no formal schooling, compared with 29% of Hindu men,” the report said, adding that even in the youngest generation of adults in the study, Hindu women are considerably more likely than Hindu men to have received no formal education (38% vs 20%).
The vast majority of the world’s Hindus live in India (94%) or in the bordering countries of Nepal (2.3%) and Bangladesh (1.2%).
“In these three countries, Hindus tend to have low levels of education; in India, Hindus average 5.5 years of schooling, while in Nepal and Bangladesh they average 3.9 and 4.6 years, respectively,” Pew said.
“However, in countries outside the Asia-Pacific region, where Hindus are a small religious minority, they are much more highly educated – and often are the most highly educated religious group in a particular country,” the report noted.
For instance, Hindus in the US have 15.7 years of schooling, on average – a full year more than the next most highly educated US religious group (Jews), and nearly three years more than the average American adult (12.9 years).
Hindus in Europe also are highly educated, averaging 13.9 years of schooling, Pew said.http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...says-survey/story-7tNNhrRn958MlSXZdTPzjM.html

 

[yesmohan]

Hindus are the least educated....................yes.
Despite the fact that they are the oldest religion, Hindus did not learn the art of converting others into their fold!!

 

[CHANDRU1849]

The purpose of this survey, it seems, is mainly to downgrade Hinduism. Is total population in terms of percentage taken as a criteria? What about Jains, Sikhs and Parsis?

 

[GANESH65]

 

[prasad1]

The purpose of this survey, it seems, is mainly to downgrade Hinduism. Is total population in terms of percentage taken as a criteria? What about Jains, Sikhs and Parsis?

The op states:

Hindus continue to have the lowest level of educational attainment among all the major religions of the world despite having made strides in the sector, a Pew study said on Wednesday.

It is very difficult to change mindset when you are denial. A fact does not become irrelevant just because it is denied by few.

Also the op states:

For instance, Hindus in the US have 15.7 years of schooling, on average – a full year more than the next most highly educated US religious group (Jews), and nearly three years more than the average American adult (12.9 years).

 

[vgane]

Why not on race? Are not the Blacks the least educated? What are we trying to achieve by this classification in OP??

 

[prasad1]

We can find statistics by various categories. When a statistics includes the group I belong to, it should be of interest to other members of the group. If it offends others I am sorry, sometimes the reality bites. I do not shy away from reality. I think we should do something about it. I contribute to education in India and USA. So it is sad to see that we (Hindus) have not sufficiently to improve the education level of our own people.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

I think the OP is nothing but statistics based on survey...

In this connection I would like to reiterate the postings of the thread opener in another thread...

Statistics have proved wrong the surveys.
Do we know how the responders were selected?
.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

So, going by his opinion, statistics are nothing but lies.

Do we now need to discuss about the lies.....?

 

[tks]

Not sure I am able to understand the survey and what it is trying to convey.

The illiteracy rate in India is low and that is known. It is a developing country and there is great disparity between 'have' and 'have not'.

It is fine to compare Hindus in India with Muslims in India or Christians in India and I am sure the education levels of these will not be drastically different.

But comparing Hindus mostly in India with Christians who are mainly in western nations that are more advanced in terms of economy has no purpose. It is just to provide for a startling statistics as if Hinduism is correlated to levels of so called 'formal education'.

India needs to improve as a country though this formal education.But overemphasis on this for most part is a farce. In most countries the education system does not prepare one for real life work.

Many high schoolers in USA cannot read or write properly, most are handicapped with basic arithmetic. So the choice of comparing religion and levels of education in terms of class room instructions does not make sense to me.

 

[prasad1]

[h=2]Primary education for girls depends significantly on maternal education and attitudes towards schooling[/h]Kunti Devi is a mother of eight. Her brood includes three girls. Her daily drill begins at 4 a.m. and seldom varies: Get up, wash utensils, clean the house, cook food and prepare her daughters for school. Her eldest daughter is in Class IX, the second in Class VIII and her youngest, Lagni Kumari (12), is in Class III at the local primary school.
Their father, Siya Sharan Manjhi, is a musahar by caste, lowest of the low in the caste hierarchy of Bihar. Musahars or rat catchers of village Govindpur musahari, have been classified as mahadalits or the most depressed, in the State.
Literacy is rare in this caste group. The 2011 census pegs their literacy rate at 11.1 per cent although for women, it is 3.8 per cent. Caste and gender come in the way of educating the Musahars with women bearing the brunt of neglect.

“It is a struggle to send all the daughters to school as they lend a hand in the household chores. But if I could get one of them to become something, my struggle would have been worth the while,” says Kunti Devi, as she slaps cowdung on her mud walls. The cowdung cake hardened under the sun fuels the hearth and her family.
“Sukhi roti khayenge, lekin betiyon ko school padhne bhejenge (We will have dry chapattis but will send our girls to school),” she murmurs. Lagni Kumari and her two elder sisters are first-generation school goers in their family.
Although she is unlettered, Ms. Devi says that today she feels proud when she sees her daughters read letters in books and read signboards, adding that education is a must to get ahead in life. She also spends Rs. 200 every month on private tuition for her daughters.
“I work extra hard by selling buffalo milk; the money comes in handy. And sometimes, for the sake of my daughter, I make do with one meal,” she says.



Lagni Kumari wants to become a police constable while her elder sisters want to be a teacher like the school principal Sudha Kumari.
At the government run primary school in Phulwarisharief block there are 53 girls on the rolls out of total strength of 98. The school often doubles up as a stable for the grazing goats and cows; offering shelter to sundry other animals during the monsoons.
The children sit on the bare floors with their books spread out. Classes I to V are held in one room as the school has only two rooms. The school has two teachers, and a principal.
However, there is a surprise: For the last nine years, the dropouts have been almost negligible and girls attend more regularly than boys. The boys are often engaged in the illicit mahua trade while the girls sent to school.
School Principal Ms. Kumari says, “Parents have to be convinced regularly to send their children to school…every Saturday I call parents of my students to the school and interact with them while convincing them about why sending their children to school is important.”
Yet, the teacher will tell you that even if two students out of 98 make it to college, that is no mean achievement. The odds of a girl being one of those two appear daunting.
The reasons for this become apparent from a survey four years ago, which was based on a sample of 8,903 children from the extremely backward communities studying in Classes I to V in government primary and primary with upper primary schools in two districts of Bihar.
This study found that 42 per cent of the sampled children were first-time school goers and 75 per cent of the sample were children from families where the mother had never been to school.
The Nitish Kumar government had given bicycles to girl students as incentive to get them to school but the real challenge lies in convincing the mothers to send their girl child to school.
Combining adult literacy and compulsory schooling for students from the extremely backward communities will be real test for the state government.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article16871897.ece

 

[V.Balasubramani]

Reimagining intelligence in the classroom


The recent surge of enthusiasm over Vedic mathematics — whichsome sceptics say is neither very Vedic nor particularly mathematical — sayssomething about social perception of a field of knowledge that epitomisesobjectivity. It is a reminder that value placed on intellectual, spiritual, oremotional faculties is culturally constructed. If the ancient Greeks valuedphysical prowess, reason and virtue, the Romans privileged valour; Chineseculture, influenced by Confucianism, appreciated calligraphy, archery, drawingand poetry.

Models of intelligence

The Harvardcognitive scientist and educational thinker Howard Gardner points out that itis only in the last few centuries in the West that the category of the“intelligent person” has come to become a pervasive, if evolving ideal. Intraditional schools, intelligence implied the ability to master classicallanguages and mathematics, whereas in business settings, it translated into theability to balance commercial risks and opportunities, build an organisationand keep the books. During the heyday of colonialism, the intelligent person wasone who could be sent to the farthest corners of the empire and who couldexecute orders competently.

One of thepredominant models of an intelligent person to emerge at the turn of thetwentieth century, according to Dr. Gardner, is the “symbol analyst”, a personwho can sit for hours interpreting complex systems made of numbers, languages,and other codes and making projections based on them; the other is the “masterof change”, one capable of acquiring new information and solving problems,forming “weak ties” with mobile and highly dispersed people, and adaptingsmoothly to changing circumstances.
A look ateducational systems around the world tells us that Asian schools cultivate theintelligence of the symbol analyst with visible success. Journalist FareedZakaria points out that students from Shanghai schools emerged as the bestperformers in the Programme for International Student Assessment administeredby the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, two years aheadof the best-performing U.S. schools in Massachusetts. One reason behind this,as the then U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argued, is that Chinesestudents spend 25 to 30 per cent more time a year in school than their Americancounterparts. Even so, Mr. Zakaria warns the U.S. against emulating the Asianeducational system, which, as he recounts from his own experience in India,still remains oriented around test-taking and memorisation.


Read more at: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/col...lligence-in-the-classroom/article15328295.ece

 

[prasad1]

While it would be a perfectly valid argument that the level of economic development of a society (or country) will have a strong bearing on the spread of education (though this may not be the only factor), it is hard to see how a religion correlates with education. Thus, there should be no surprise in the fact that the Christians of Western Europe are likely to demonstrate higher educational attainments than those in Latin America or Africa. Within a country too, the Hindus of Kerala will typically have spent more years at school and college than, say, in Bihar, that lags far behind. Extending the argument, it will be reasonable to expect that Hindus (or for that matter Christians or Muslims) in all parts of India will have broadly similar educational levels if they come from broadly similar economic backgrounds.
A religion-derived omnibus category for the world does not, therefore, appear to serve much point. Since Hindus live in one of the world’s poorest regions, South Asia (preponderantly India and Nepal), no surprise is caused by the Pew finding that the average Hindu female has only 4.2 years of schooling and the male 6.4 years. This, in fact, broadly tallies with India’s official data on proportions of India’s literate population (about 75 per cent male, against around 53 per cent female) having primary education (uptil Class 5).
For the world’s Muslims, the Pew research shows only a very marginal increase over the result for Hindus. Muslim women have 4.9 years of schooling on average while the case of men is identical with that of Hindus.http://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/151216/flawed-thinking-on-religion-education.html

 

[V.Balasubramani]

The most and least educated U.S. religious groups

BY CARYLE MURPHY35 COMMENTS

Attainment of a four-year college degree in the United States, often regarded as a key asset for economic success, varies by race and gender. But the share of people completing a college education also differs by religion, with members of some faith groups much more educated, on average, than others.

By far, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists have among the largest share of those with a college degree – 77% and 67% respectively. Roughly six-in-ten Jews (59%) have college degrees, as do similar shares in both the Anglican church (59%) and the Episcopal Church (56%).
These groups are among the top of a list of 30 U.S. religious groups ranked by educational attainment based on data from our 2014 Religious Landscape Study.

Read more at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/04/the-most-and-least-educated-u-s-religious-groups/

 

[zebra16]

I think the OP is nothing but statistics based on survey...

In this connection I would like to reiterate the postings of the thread opener in another thread...





So, going by his opinion, statistics are nothing but lies.

Do we now need to discuss about the lies.....?

You hit the nail right on the head. This copy-paster just keeps searching for newspaper clippings that suit his agenda and delude us with much useless stuff.

 

[CHANDRU1849]

The op states:


It is very difficult to change mindset when you are denial. A fact does not become irrelevant just because it is denied by few.

Also the op states:

Who is against getting educated? But sometimes Statistics throws a different light. Since majority of Hindus are living India, castes and vote bank politics are playing havoc. Despite so many odds, Hindus from downtrodden communities are able to go to school.

Regarding population, Jews are less than 10 crores and it is not known the education level of Christians living in poor countries, especially Africa, Asia and Latin American countries.

But the real fact cannot be denied once it comes to light, irrespective of religion.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

. This copy-paster just keeps searching for newspaper clippings that suit his agenda and delude us with much useless stuff.

Sir,



Source: Google images

 

[prasad1]

A relationship in which two people have strong feelings of esteem for each other and often exchange lavish compliments. The term may signify either genuine or pretended admiration, as in Each of them praised the other's book—it was a real mutual admiration society.

The fact of the matter is that in this forum people talk of increasing Hindu population. But when it comes to improving the lot of the same population there is ZERO cooperation. Instead the bearer of truth is bashed to silence.
The bullying is not going to silence the exposure of facts.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

A relationship in which two people have strong feelings of esteem for each other and often exchange lavish compliments. The term may signify either genuine or pretended admiration, as in Each of them praised the other's book—it was a real mutual admiration society.

The fact of the matter is that in this forum people talk of increasing Hindu population. But when it comes to improving the lot of the same population there is ZERO cooperation. Instead the bearer of truth is bashed to silence.
The bullying is not going to silence the exposure of facts.

I would like to share one of the postings of the thread opener in another thread.

You are right.
When there is no secure networks, going cashless is pure dream. It just shows the lack of foresight on the part of present administration, and some idealist.

Is this genuine or pretended admiration…?

Someone comes here to report that he is striving hard to improve the Hindu population and complaints ZERO co-operation.

BTW what is this improving the Hindu population…..? What is the need for it now...?

Instead the bearer of truth is bashed to silence.
The bullying is not going to silence the exposure of facts.

What is this bullying...? The torch bearer of the alleged truth conveniently forgets the number of threads that he opens every day under G.D. and responses such threads receive.(which speaks volume) LOL


P.S: Think twice before hitting the 'ENTER' button.

 

[prasad1]

VBji,
Your way is a police state way, you do not believe in others having opinion.
I was raised a democratic way and I believe in everyone having a say.
You still indulge in character assassination of the poster instead of presenting your point on the subject. If you do not like my post you can post counterpoint in that thread or start your own thread. There is no need to comment about the poster.


How many times and how many ways this point has to be made.

 

[V.Balasubramani]

VBji,
Your way is a police state way, you do not believe in others having opinion.
I was raised a democratic way and I believe in everyone having a say.
You still indulge in character assassination of the poster instead of presenting your point on the subject. If you do not like my post you can post counterpoint in that thread or start your own thread. There is no need to comment about the poster.


How many times and how many ways this point has to be made.

Prasad Ji,

First you should not speak about yourself.

It is others who should certify your democratic way, etc

And you are not supposed to give me instructions about startng my own thread.

It is my right to participate in every thread

It is you who always throw the first stone and complaint about others... and that is your M.O.

First you should change... without your changing expecting others to change is unfair.