in 2015, the United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. One of those goals is gender equality (i.e., goal #5).

Gender Inequality has been an imperative social issue in India for centuries. India lags behind when it comes to education for women, and this lag hinders a woman’s role in their society. Some symptoms of the problem are:

• The role of women living in a traditional Indian society is to look after the home and children which requires no schooling.
• The Indian society is organized in a way that it is patriarchal i.e., it revolves around the male and the female occupies a negligible role. The sons are considered as assets whereas the daughters are considered as liabilities
• If the family is living in poverty, then the female child is tasked with household chores and taking care of her siblings. Thus, no time nor money is spent on the female child’s education
• If a woman is able to earn money after receiving education, then there is a concern that she will hurt the male ego due to her independence.

According to the above bar chart, the literacy rate of Indian women as a percentage of the total population of women in India in the year 1981 was found to be approximately 25.68%. However, India did not remain idle when faced with such a conundrum.  In 2009, they implemented a program called the Saakshar Bharat program that aims to promote and strengthen adult learning, reaching out to those who missed the opportunity to access or complete formal education as well as basic literacy/education. This program involves the government of India acting as a facilitator and resource provider while simultaneously working closely with many local communities in order to design educational programs tailor-made to their specific needs. After the implementation of the program, the literacy rate among Indian women reached 65.78% in 2018.

This result alone proves that the program has been successful in eliciting change for Indian women via education. Therefore, the Indian government should continue offering the program and invest more funds into it to target more local communities within the region.