Gender Representation In Marathi Language Textbooks

Abstract

Education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status for women. Emphasis has been laid on equal educational opportunities in all fields, removal of gender bias against women in textbooks and top priority to the universalisation of elementary education of girls. The NCFSE (2000) laid emphasis on the curricular training strategies for the education of girls, need to make education accessible to more and more girls particularly rural girls, remove all gender bias and discrimination in school curriculum, textbooks and transaction process and evolving sensitive curricular strategies. "For Full development of our human resources, the improvement of homes, and for moulding the character of children during the most impressionable years of infancy, the education of' women is of even greater importance than that of men". Textbooks constitute an inseparable part of any system of education today. Even in the most developed countries where a variety of teaching learning tools and techniques are available in the classrooms, textbooks continue to enjoy their respectful place. In a developing country like ours, where even the minimum essential requirements of a classroom are hardly provided, the need for quality textbooks cannot be over emphasized. In fact, the textbook is the one useful instructional tool which is available both to the teachers and the pupils- the two principal users of the textbooks. To the teacher, it provides useful guidelines along with he/she plans his/her day to day teaching, serves as a reference book which actually teaching in the classroom, provides suggestions for some assignments, suggests activities to be taken up in the classroom and outside.