Factor Variation with Level of Education Among Women Groups in Natural Resource Management

Abstract

In an effort to sustain Natural Resource Management (NRM) in united Andhra Pradesh, there has been a major thrust on implementation of various technologies under integrated natural resource management programme by the state. Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for rural women. In this context, the present study was taken up in all the three regions of united Andhra Pradesh viz., Telangana, Rayalaseema and Andhra Pradesh with an objective to study the factor variation with level of education of women groups in Natural Resource Management. The results indicated that the more than one-third (41.67%) respondents (from GO) were possessing High school education and less than one-fourth of respondents (23.33%) were Illiterate, while in case of NGO promoted majority of women respondents were with High school (45.83%) followed by the upper primary (20.83%). Majority (50.00%) of the women in the Government promoted villages had medium level of total participatory management. while in case of NGO promoted women in groups respondents (49.17%) had medium level of total participatory management. It could be inferred that majority of the respondents (59.58%) had medium level of total participation in watershed management activities under NRM. In government promoted groups majority (31.67%) had very high level of empowerment and (1.67%) of the women had very low level of empowerment, while in NGO promoted groups higher 51.67 per cent of the respondents had medium level of empowerment and none of them are with very low and very high empowerment. Majority of the respondents had favourable attitude towards the participatory approach. So, higher number of respondents both in GO and NGO promoted groups were having a highly favourable attitude towards the participatory approach. The results showed about variation of GO and NGO in level of education with participatory management, empowerment and attitude towards NRM, that there is no significant difference among the different levels of education of the participants with respect to their mean participatory management score. There is a difference levels of education varied in the degree of empowerment. This variability in the different levels of education on empowerment was significantly different from each other and different levels of education varied significantly in their degree of attitude. This variability in the different levels of education on attitude was highly significant and differs from each other. The study concluded that women groups will be viable when they diversify in their activities.