Skip to main content

Gujarat's 22% rural girls fail to attend school, worse than all states, including UP, Bihar: Govt of India report

A Government of India (GoI) report, released recently, has found that, despite much hype around girl child education through Kanya Kalavani Mahotsav – the annual school enrolment event launched by Narendra Modi as chief minister in Gujarat way back 2004 – the “model” state’s rural girls fare worse among all 21 major Indian states in schooling.
Based on a survey of all Indian districts (640 as per 2011 Census), the data in the report reveal that Gujarat’s 77.9% rural girls in the age group 6-17 attended school in 2014-15 and 2015-16, the years of the survey. This is worse than any other state, with Uttar Pradesh faring the next better. While the best performer is Kerala (97.7%), all so-called Bimaru states perform better than Gujarat.
The percentage of rural girls attending schools, for instance, is 82.9% in Jharkhand, 82.3% in Bihar, 81.1% in Odisha, 80.2% in Odisha, 79.9% in Madhya Pradesh, 79% in Rajasthan, and 78.5% in Uttar Pradesh – the states known for their allegedly poor economic performance.
The data form part of the final report of the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16 (NFHS-4), released last month by the Government of India. The aim of collecting education-related data, it says, is to provide “a context for interpreting demographic and health indicators” across India.
Apart from school attendance, the report also provides information on drinking water, sanitation, exposure to smoke inside the home, wealth, hand washing, composition of the household population, educational attainment, birth registration, children’s living arrangements, and parental survivorship.
Gujarat’s ranking is not just poorest for school attendance of rural girls; it is equally bad for urban girls in the age group 6-17. Thus, the report reveals that 82.2% of urban girls attended school during the two survey periods, 2014-15 and 2015-16, which is worse among all 21 major Indian states, with the sole exception of Assam (77.3%).
The best performer here again in Kerala, with 97% urban girls attending school, with all other so-called Bimaru states, with the exception of Odisha, performing better than Gujarat, including Rajasthan 87.7%, Chhattisgarh 85.4%, Bihar 85.2%, Jharkhand 83.8%, Uttar Pradesh 83.2%, and Madhya Pradesh 82.3%.
The figures have been arrived at, says the report, by ascertaining the total number of children attending primary and secondary school, divided by the official school age population at both the levels. The survey finds that, across India, 85% of children in the age group 6-17 attended school, including pre-primary.
Interestingly, Gujarat’s average, rural plus urban, of those attending school comes to 81.2% (85.3% boys and 78.4% girls).
All India average
The report further says, “Almost all (95%) males and females age 6-10 attend school, including pre-primary school. This percentage decreases to 88 percent for children age 11-14 and then drops further to 63 percent for children age 15-17.”
It adds, “There is almost no difference in school attendance by males and females at age 6-14, but males are more likely than females to attend school at age 15-17 (67% versus 60%). Urban-rural differentials in school attendance are minimal at age 6-10, but widen at older ages.”
While there is no state-wise breakup, the report finds that “attendance in the lowest wealth quintile is 52 percent for girls and 55 percent for boys, compared with 80 percent for girls and 81 percent for boys in the highest wealth quintile.”

Comments

TRENDING

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 crucially influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

What's wrong with those seeking to promote Sanskrit? An ex-Hindi professor has the answer

Ajay Tiwari  I have always wondered why certain elite sections are so fascinated by Sanskrit, to the extent of even practicing speaking a language that, for all practical purposes, isn’t alive. During my Times of India stint in Gandhinagar, the Gujarat state capital, I personally witnessed an IAS bureaucrat, Bhagyesh Jha, trying to converse with a friend in Sanskrit.