Özet:

The study was designed to investigate the causes and consequences of low literacy rate among females in district Matiari at secondary schools’ level. It was a descriptive research and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique was adopted by using both quantitative and qualitative techniques for data collection. The present research study wanted to get the opinion of rural females and their parents on various reasons causing low female literacy and high dropout ratio at secondary schools’ level. Data were collected from 478 rural females. Four talukas and 15 UCs of district Matiari were included in the sample. Moreover, PRA technique was held with rural females and parents in each UC to ask their opinion about causes and consequences of low literacy. All possible factors causing low literacy were grouped into domestic chores, low admission of girls in school, high dropout ratio, gender-based discrimination, socio cultural barriers, and school related factors. One sample t-test statistics was applied to know the overall responses of the respondents. Majority of the respondents were agreed on the above causes and consequences. Therefore, the hypothesis of the research is accepted based on t-test score, mean score and the significance level which is < 0.05. These causes have negative consequences on female lives. To increase female literacy rate, government should pay attention on adult literacy for psychological training and awareness of parents as most respondents of the study replied that their parents do not allow for education. Secondary schools should be established in rural communities near the villages. Poverty reduction programs should be launched at tehsil and village level by establishing small industries so that parents do not make lame excuses of poverty factor.

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