Department of Economics

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    A study on socio-spatial variations in learning attainment of students at the primary level of education in West Bengal with special reference to Alipurduar District
    (University of North Bengal, 2024) Pal, Tushar Kanti; Bagchi, Kanak Kanti
    ABSTRACT Since Independence of India, the country has significantly progressed in the areas of access and participation in elementary education. Most of the rural areas have at least one primary school within the 1 km of the habitation. Participation of both boys and girls in elementary education measured in terms of Gross Enrolment Ratio and Net Enrolment Ratio have increased manifold. In case of primary education (I-V), Gross enrolment ratio (GER) rose to 95.12 percent in 2016-17 from 42.6 percent in 1950-51 and Net enrolment ratio (NER) reached 83.62 percent in 2016-17. There has been a commendable progress in the participation of underprivileged and marginalized section of the society in school education compared to the pre-independence period. But such kind of quantitative advancement in education sector of India has not been accompanied by qualitative progress especially in the areas of learning attainment of the pupil of elementary school education. At the international level, India participated in Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) in 2009 and performed very poorly. At the national level, this deplorable condition has been frequently reflected in the reports of Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Pratichi Trust and National Achievement Survey. At the regional level, a good number of studies by individual researchers have also highlighted this dismal condition of learning attainment of the students on regular basis. Therefore, severe learning crisis is present along with regional variations. If India is to harness the advantage of demographic dividend from its young population, the quality of education must be raised at the desired level. Having identified the research problem in this way, this study focussed on the problems of learning outcome at regional level. The study raised some specific questions. In order to solve these questions, some hypotheses were formulated and later on the study tried to solve those problems logically. To accomplish this task, research methodology along with tools and techniques has been framed. This study used both primary and secondary data. Method of sampling was stratified random sampling and purposive sampling. The study was conducted in Alipurduar, 20th district of West Bengal in order of formation of the district. Since the class 4 is the terminal class of the primary education of West Bengal, so it is expected that the students of class 4 should have learned basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy. So the students of class 4 have been taken into consideration for the evaluation of learning outcome. The study made an extensive review of literature to synthesize past researches on this topic. Since the study focussed on the problems of deficiency in learning attainment of the school going children at the primary level, it looked into the persistent debate over the relative influence of school resources and socioeconomic status of the learner on the learning outcome of the student. The seminal literary work of Coleman (1966) revealed that it was the socioeconomic status of the learners and not the school resources that has an important role in shaping the educational outcome of the learners. The study by Heyneman and Loxley (1983), Rutter (1983) and many others found contrary findings. Their observations were that school resources have dominant role to play on the learning outcome of the students of low-income countries because usually such countries have severe resource constraints. Later on the study by Baker et al. (2002) and Hanushek and Luque (2003) found that the influence of family background on the learner educational outcome does not depend on the status of development of any country. However, most of these studies were done on developed countries. By conducting an extensive review of literature Chudgar and Shafiq (2010) concluded that most of the researches in South Asian countries focussed on access, drop out, graduation rate, participation of the students in school. Very little attention has been paid to the issue of learning attainment of the learners. On other hand, most of the studies defined the socioeconomic status of the learners narrowly by taking the parental education, income and occupation only. This study tried to address this research gap by focussing on the factors that have potential in influencing the learning attainment of the students. To accomplish this task, the study took into account exclusively family level characteristics of the learners only. Family background characteristic have been broken down into three capitals, namely, human capital, material capital and social capital. This is consistent with the suggestion put forward by Coleman (1988). Three separate indexes of the above mentioned capitals have been constructed from the background information of the learners by using Multiple Correspondence Analysis. In addition to these indexes, gender of the learner, category of school learner studying i.e., government or private and presence of pre-primary schooling experience of the learners have been taken as independent variables. In order to explain the variations in scores obtained by the learners, an achievement test was performed by taking the students of class 4 only. Score obtained by the learners in the achievement test has been used as dependent variable. Finally Multiple Regression has been used to explain the variances in the test scores of the learners. The model revealed that the social capital inside the family along with the material capital has statistically significant effect on the learning attainment of the student. In addition to that, type of school is also another predictor that has statistically significant influence on learners’ learning outcome. The study has also tried to find out the factors behind the school choice of the parents for their children. By using Logistic Regression, the study found that educational level of the mother and financial condition of the family of the learners were the two important deciding factors for the selection of schools by the parents for their children. Since financial condition of the family is an important predictor of the learning outcome of the learners, government should take necessary steps to uplift the economic conditions of the people. On the other hand, since the study found that social capital inside the family have statistically significant influence on the educational outcome of the learners, so school authority must sensitize the parents in this respect.
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    Agricultural credit and rural development : A study of the patterns of credit demand and supply in the farm sector of jalpaiguri district in West Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 2023) Aich, Partha Sarathi; Roy Mukherjee, Sanchari
    The term “Development” is a value based and subjective concept which implies revealing untapped potential powers. In general terms, development means revealing favourable changes in set of vector of desirable social objectives which does not diminish over time. Within the comprehensive set development, the term “rural development” is a subset that exposes the overall development of agriculture and allied activities, village and cottage industries, village crafts, physical infrastructure, community services, natural and human capital in rural areas. In particular terms, rural development involves helping downtrodden small scale farmers, tenants and the landless people to seek a livelihood in the rural areas so as to control fruits of rural development. The rural economy of India is predominantly agrarian in character. The agricultural subsector comprises crops cultivation, animal husbandry, dairying, fishing, poultry and forestry whereas small-scale rural industries, rural business and services belong to non-agricultural subsector. The Indian agriculture sector is fraught with several difficulties such as low factor productivity, low capital-labour ratio, long gestation period, small uneconomic land holdings, high vulnerability and risks to natural calamities, non-remunerative prices of farm produce, poor post-harvest infrastructure, high incidence of poverty, prevalence of illiterate and unskilled workforce as well as lack of modern amenities. During the post-independence period, favourable factors that contributed to the remarkable agricultural growth are the increased use of agricultural inputs, technological change and paradigm shift in institutional framework. Among all factor inputs, farm credit is considered as the most vital input for agricultural and rural development. At national level, two events such as the introduction of the new agricultural technology by the end of 1960’s and nationalization of commercial banks in 1969 led to the paradigm shift in institutional credit supply mechanism. However, the nationwide implementation of financial reform measures during 90’s and thereafter resulted in decline of credit flow and squeeze on resource availability for agricultural activities due to strict implementation of Basel norms. In the context of the present research study, a micro-level analysis on the basis of primary data has been conducted in the context of Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. The district is located in the most northern part of the state and the economy is mainly based on agriculture and tea gardens. Apart from tea production, principle crops are paddy, wheat, maize, potato and jute respectively. Of the total workforce in the state, the share of cultivators and agricultural labourers constitute nearly 17 percent and 26 percent respectively. The majority number of people engaged in cultivation works belongs to small and marginal farmers’ category with average land holding size of 1.24 hectares only. The period of 90’s, saw limited additions to the number of service branches of commercial banks. However, the period beyond 2010-11 was marked by spread of bank branches at statutory and census towns to fulfill the needs and aspirations of needy farmers and small scale entrepreneurs. It has been observed from various previous research studies that much emphasis was put on the operational efficiency of Regional Rural Banks, performance of SHG–Bank linked micro–credit programme, rural poverty and unemployment issues, agrarian indebtedness and so on. But, such academic studies did not focus much in a systematic way into the issues on patterns of credit demand and supply in the farm sector of Jalpaiguri district. Therefore, during the course of research study, emphasis has been put on disaggregated trends of institutional farm credit flow at the national and state level, demand-side factors that account for variations in farmer households’ demand for credit and credit supply patterns from institutional agencies. The present research study has also dealt with various aspects of non-institutional credit market with respect to landholding patterns, farming practices, rural caste-structure and infrastructure set-up prevailing at sampled areas of study district. At the macro level, the period after 2004-05 witnessed gradual rise in rural and semi-rural bank branches accompanied by sharp rise in credit flow to agriculture sector. From 2001 to 2011, 17 major states from western, southern and northern India occupied major share of overall credit outstanding to agriculture between 2005 and 2015 period. On the other hand, in the eastern and north-eastern states the growth of credit outstanding to agricultural sector was negative in the 1990’s followed by moderate rise after the 2000-01 period. The state of West Bengal acts as the nodal state for the entire eastern and north-eastern states. The state alone contributes 40 percent of the entire region’s GDP. The state is home for nearly 72 lakh farm families of whom 96 percent belongs to small and marginal farmers’ category. The farmers in West Bengal are less creditworthy than southern and northern states while wide inter-district variations exist in credit delivery status. The credit-deposit ratio of the state stands below the national average of 74 percent meaning banks in the state provide less amount of credit than they mobilize savings deposits from the people. In nutshell, Development is a subjective matter and no general consensus can be reached about its proper meaning. The term rural development being a sub-component implies the overall development of rural areas encompassing agriculture, allied activities and non-farm sector. This research study intends to present a critical analysis on various aspects of agriculture and rural development of Jalpaiguri district. The main objective of this research study is to identify the existing institutional and physical infrastructure facilities at rural areas and their potentialities for the future development of rural sector of the study district. The present research study has also been carried out with wider application of different statistical tools and techniques to portray patterns of institutional credit flow to farm sector and farmer’s demand behaviour pertaining to credit sourced from both institutional and non-institutional agents in the study area. With such wider application of statistical tools and techniques on sample data, suitable conclusions with constructive measures have been prescribed for the holistic improvement of rural sector in the study area.
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    Agricultural credit in Assam with special reference to Assam gramin vikash bank: a case study of Barpeta District
    (University of North Bengal, 2019) Kalita, Malay ,; Bhuimali, Anil,
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    Agricultural enterprise in North Bengal : a study in farm economy in Jalpaiguri 1973-75
    (University of North Bengal, 1980) Lahiri, Chandidas; Bhattacharya, S N.
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    Agricultural Mechanization in West Bengal: A comparative Study of Bardhaman and Dakshin Dinajpur Districts
    (University of North Bengal, 2016) Sarkar, Chinmoy; Bagchi, Kanak Kanti
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    Agricultural responses of land reforms and new technology: a village-level study in Jalpaiguri District of West Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 2002) Konar, Swapan Kanti; Chakrabarty, Hillol Kumar
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    Agririan backwardness and interlocking of product and factor markets in agriculture : a study of Cooch Behar District in West Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 1998) Chakrabarti, Debabrata; Chakraborty, Hillol Kumar,
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    Apiculture marketing through cooperatives in West Bengal with special reference to South 24 Pargonas and North Dinajpur Districts
    (University of North Bengal, 2017) Baidya, Manish; Sen, Bikash Bhusan; Bhuimali, Anil
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    The artisanal silk industry of West Bengal: a study of its history, performance and current problems
    (University of North Bengal, 2015) Roy, Chandan; Mukherjee, Sanchari Roy
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    Attaining self-sufficiency in finances : a study of resource mobilization strategies as Cooch Behar Municipality
    (University of North Bengal, 2012) Karmakar, Asit Roy; Bhuimali, Anil and Mandal, Chanchal Kumar
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    Decline of the silk industry in Malda region : with special reference to the British period
    (University of North Bengal, 1991) Mukhopadhyay, Anis; Dasgupta, M
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    Demand for and productivity of farm credit in Nepal: with special reference to Morang District
    (University of North Bengal, 2004) Adhikari, Ramesh Prasad; Bagchi, Kanak Kanti.
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    Displacement and livelihood changes in erosion affected char areas in Assam; a socio - economic study of Dhubri District
    (University of North Bengal, 2021) Shahjahan, Ali Sheikh; Dutta, Kanchan,