Discuss the main objectives of Population Education and point out the measures to achieve them in India in detail. UPSC IAS Mains 2021 General Studies (Paper – 1)
The total number of people living in a particular place, at a particular time, is known as a population. Population Education can be defined as a process of developing awareness and understanding of the population situation among people and making them more responsible towards managing the population.
Objectives of Population Education is to develop and understanding of
- Demographic concepts and processes.
- Influence of population trends on the various aspects of human life - social, cultural, political and economic.
- Close interaction of population growth and the developmental process with particular reference to development programmes for raising the standard of living of people.
- Evil effects of overpopulation on the environment and the concomitant dangers from pollution.
- Scientific and medical advancement enabling to get an increasing control over famines, diseases and death and the imbalance thus created between death rate and birth rate.
- Biological factors and phenomenon of reproduction which are responsible for continuance of the species.
Population Education in India:
- India became one of the first developing countries to come up with a state-sponsored family planning programme in the 1950s. A population policy committee was established in 1952. In 1956, a Central Family Planning Board was set up and its focus was on sterilisation. In 1976, GoI announced the first National Population Policy.
- The National Population Policy, 2000 envisaged achieving a stable population for India. One of its immediate objectives is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and personnel and provide integrated service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care.
- National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India.
- The beginning of population education in India can be traced to the third Five Year Plan (1961-66). Realising the potential of education in tackling the problems of growing rate of population, a Population Education Programme was launched in 1980 to introduce Population Education in the formal education system.
The family welfare program over the last five decades with holistic approach towards population control have made significant contributions, but the necessity for the intervention of educational efforts to bring appropriate social transformations so as to promote population stabilisation and ensure quality of life can never be denied. The universities and other educational institutions can play a vital role by providing adequate knowledge and necessary awareness in relevant areas.
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