To commemorate the International Literacy Day, Department of Social Work, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata (SXUK) arranged a special lecture on ‘75 Years of Independence: Advancements and Bottlenecks in Education for Disadvantaged Communities’ on September 7, 2022.

The speaker was Mr. Sabir Ahamed, National Research Coordinator, Pratichi Institute who spoke on the positive impact of education. Terming education as a basic human right and no longer a privilege for some groups, he said that education raises human capital, productivity, income, employability and economic growth. Education improves critical thinking and develops agency among people, creates job opportunities, helps to spread awareness against social evils like child marriage and teen pregnancies, he said. Class, caste, language, gender, and birthplace should not hinder the spread of education, he added.

While analyzing impact of digitalization of education during the COVID-19 pandemic, he focused on children in West Bengal. The key areas of concern were accessibility to internet, affordability of technological device or data and computing abilities. All the faculty members and students of the department attended the session.

Dr. Rupa Biswas