Skip to main content

Beti padhao? India's 30% girls from poorest families "haven't set foot" inside classroom

When the whole world is going to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, the current scenario of girls’ education in India is very precarious. Nearly 40% of adolescent girls aged 15-18 are not attending any educational institution, said Ambarish Rai, National Convener, Right of Education (RTE) Forum, has said.
He added, About 30% of girls from the poorest families have never set foot inside a classroom. Girls are twice as likely as boys to have less than 4 years of schooling.
In a statement issued on the eve of International Women’s Day, Rai said, “More than 60 million children are out of school in India. This is the highest number of out of school children of any country in the world. About 25% of boys and girls are unable to read Std 2 level text. Around 36% girls and 38% boys are unable to read words in English. Moreover, about 42% girls and 39% boys are unable to do basic subtraction arithmetic.”
He further said, “India’s Right to Education Act 2009 guarantees every child between the ages of 6 and 14 the right to free and compulsory schooling. However, the act is not widely implemented. The rate of compliance is as low as 9% across India. What’s more pathetic that it excludes secondary school children between 15 and 18 years of age, leaving many children, and girls in particular, without the education they need to build a better future for their families, communities and country.”
Rai stated, many of those who are able to access schools leave without the knowledge and skills they need to enter the labour markets.
“Though Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) data shows secondary school children’s foundational reading and math abilities are poor and average achievement scores of Class V students have declined in all subjects between 2011 and 2014, but why the government is not ready to invest required resources to the government schools, as being done in Kendriya Vidyalyas and Navoday Vidyalyas? Without this how we can expect better results?", he wondered.
According to him, this is partly down to a shortage of trained teachers. He said, “Data shows 17.5% of elementary and 14.8% of secondary teaching posts are vacant. Moreover, only 70% of teachers at primary level are adequately trained and qualified.”
Pointing fingers on government’s negligence towards education system, Rai opined that this Indian system is critically under-resourced. “The Government is only spending 2.7% of GDP on education. This represents a drop from 3.1% on 2012-13. In fact, the spending remains significantly below the 2015 Incheon Declaration and Kothari Commission recommendations of allocating at least 6% of GDP to education,” he observed.
“We have heard the drumbeating of ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ by the government. But it is the government which has failed this programme. The total budget of this programme was Rs. 100 crores. And we know through various news-reports that approximately 60 per cent of this fund has been wasted on publicity only. Remaining 40 crores is just farce and inadequate to provide education to girls of this country,” Rai added.
Insisting on the need of educating all girls up to class XII, Rai said, “Increasing the share of girls completing secondary education by 1% increases economic growth by 0.3%.”
“Education serves as an important tool to empower women and girls, and is one of the most powerful investments to prevent child marriage and early pregnancy. With each year of secondary education reduces the likelihood of marrying as a child before the age of 18 by five percentage points,” he added.
“Quality education can counteract the social factors that hinder women’s labour market participation. Earnings increase by approximately 10% for each additional year of schooling. It clearly means that education not only helps to grow the economy but also fights poverty,” he argued.
Rai further said that education, particularly formal secondary education, is the most effective way to develop the skills needed for work and life. As such, it is widely considered one of the best investments to expand prospects of skilled and adequately paid employment.
“Those with access to quality senior secondary education are significantly less likely than workers with only a secondary education to be in vulnerable employment or to work informally without a contract or social benefits,” he observed.

Comments

TRENDING

Trump’s research cuts 'may mean' advantage China: But will India leverage global brain drain to its advantage?

When I heard from a couple of NRI professionals—currently on work visas and engaged in research projects at American universities—that one of President Donald Trump's major policy thrusts was to cut federal funding to the country's top educational institutions, I was instantly reminded of what Prof. Kaushik Basu had said while delivering a lecture in Ahmedabad.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

How to turn India's e-waste problem, third largest, into opportunity? Simple: Offer industry incentives!

How should one interpret a major problem that may be bogging down a private consultant while preparing an industry-friendly report on a situation that adversely impacts society—especially when the consultant sees little possibility of progress in the supposed desired direction?

Mystical, mysterious, nature's marvel? Truth behind Gujarat’s so-called disappearing temple

I was a little surprised to read a story in Business Today, a publication that should have nothing to do with religion or spirituality, let alone superstition. Carried as one of the choices by Google News, whose algorithm decides which stories to feature, the story attempts to describe a natural phenomenon using terms such as "mysterious," "mystical," "marvel of nature," and "intriguing."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

  The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.  I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation  site   "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them."  Surely, this didn't intere...

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.