Only three of every five girls in India make it to the 11th and 12th standards.
Kreeanne Rabadi, Regional Director – CRY (West) highlights the importance and reasons behind Child Rights and You – CRY’s campaign ‘Poori Padhai, Desh Ki Bhalai: Studying for Change’ and why encouraging girls towards higher education should be a priority for each one of us.
Can you share with us what CRY’s new campaign ‘Poori Padhai, Desh Ki Bhalai’ is all about?
The name of the campaign says it all – it is aimed to promote higher secondary education among girls and reduce the number of girl child dropouts in school.
To give you some background, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009 was brought in to provide universal education for Indian children up to the age of 14 years. The landmark act completed its 15th anniversary this April, and there’s no denying the fact that the education scenario in the country has significantly improved over the past one and a half decades.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot more that needs to be done. Evidence gathered from the ground suggests that even today many girls lack access to secondary and higher secondary education. To address this issue CRY, along with its many grassroots-level partner NGOs spread across 20 intervention states has launched ‘Poori Padhai Desh Ki Bhalai’ – a pan-India awareness campaign to raise public awareness and change societal attitudes towards girls’ education. The seven-week-long campaign kickstarted on the 24 June 2024, and aims to engage all its stakeholders to address gender disparities in education. The campaign will come to a close on 15 August 2024 celebrated as the Independence Day of India.
As part of the campaign, CRY and its partner organisations will aim to increase the number of enrolment and retention of girls in primary, upper-primary, secondary and higher secondary education in its operational areas; and will strive to create widespread awareness by engaging with all relevant stakeholders including children and their families, educators, community members, state administrative authorities, students at schools, colleges and universities, media houses, social media influencers, corporates, HNIs, and the people at large.
What do you think is the current situation of access to education in India?
The National Education Policy 2020 has paved the way to extend universal, free, and quality education up to age 18, aligning with the promises of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Goal-4) for equitable education by 2030. However, as the latest Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) 21-22 data reveals, only three of every five girls in India make it to the higher secondary level of education.
A deep dive into the UDISE+ 21-22 datasets reveals that a little less than 60 percent (58.2%) of girls are enrolled in higher secondary education. In other words, only three of every five girls in India make it to the 11th and 12th standards (calculations based on the Gross Enrolment Ratio – GER).
As per calculations based on the Adjusted Net Enrolment Rate (ANER) one of every three girls (35%) of the corresponding age group is out of school at the secondary level, while one of every eight girls (12.25%) of the corresponding age group enrolled in Secondary level drops out and hence does not complete secondary education.
What do you plan to achieve with this campaign?
Ensuring that all girls are enrolled in schools within our intervention areas is just one aspect of it; and the other is to make sure that they stay in school till they complete their school education up to the Higher Secondary standard – that’s what this campaign aims at.
Evidence suggests that socio-economic challenges, cultural norms, gender discrimination, early marriages, inadequate school facilities, long travel distances and safety concerns on the way to school are some of the major barriers that hinder their educational journey and continue to pose significant stumbling blocks for girls in completing their higher secondary education. This eventually increases school dropouts and makes them more vulnerable to child labour, underage marriage, teenage pregnancy, abuse and exploitation, and even child trafficking.
Can you share some success stories of girls pursuing higher education despite challenges?
Our success stories are many; but I would like to share that of Pratibha Mahilange a mother of two graceful daughters Geetika and Monika who resides in Chuchuhiyapara Ward No. 46 in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh.
At wee hours every day, almost before the dawn breaks, Pratibha gets ready for her work. Before going to work, she completes her household chores, prepares breakfast and puts that into daughters’ lunchboxes mixing with love and concern. Pratibha’s husband Girish was a driver who dreamt of providing the best of education to the girls. Pratibha recalls how he worked long hours for extra money to buy books and crayons for them. Despite such shoestring income, she claims they were happy with their dreams. Unfortunately, that story was not as nice as used to be. Girish met with a tragic train accident and that took his life and also took away the happiness from the family. Since he was the only earning member, the family landed into an existential crisis to feed three mouths.
To put an end to this torment Pratibha shouldered the responsibility. With no prior experience and since she had studied only till 10th standard, it was extremely challenging for her to find a job. And finally, she did secure a job as a cleaning and hygiene staff at Tifra Municipal Corporation. She started with just Rs. 700 a month (even less than $9). Pratibha confesses that she often wished she had completed her Bachelors so that she could have earned well and supported her family better than now. Pratibha’s hard work paid off and seems to bear the fruit of hope. Her younger daughter Monika is currently studying in 9th standard in Government Higher Secondary School, Shankar Nagar, Bilaspur while the elder one Geetika is a second year BSc student in Government Bilaspur Girls College.
During this struggle Pratibha didn’t find herself a lone warrior, CRY came forward to support her and stood by her side. Through our local partner, we are currently supporting Geetika to complete her studies, and also spreading the story of the Partibha’s fighting spirit among hundreds like Pratibha, Geetika and Monika, so they could complete their education and aspire to have a better future for themselves and for their beloved ones.
Mamta Chitnis Sen is an artist and writer who documents social crises through the arts. She also handles Media Relations for CRY – West.