Girl child cash sop in
dowry storm
April 30, 2012
The National Advisory Council (NAC) has cast serious doubts on the
government's cash-incentive scheme to check female foeticide and
correct India's skewed sex ratio, saying the money given out under
the plan is indirectly promoting dowry. The Centre and 13 states
have been offering cash incentives to poor families with the twin
aim of saving the girl child and supporting her after she turns
18. "Giving lump sum cash when the girls turn 18 or 21 may
be perceived as a subliminal message in favour of the practice of
giving dowry," an NAC working group jointly headed by Farah
Naqvi and AK Shiva Kumar said. Read
More
Shakira-This time for India UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Shakira met with a group
of adolescent girls from Udaipur in Rajasthan. For Shakira, it
was inspiring to hear the girls' stories. "It is very special
to spend time with these girls, internalize their challenges,
their efforts to get an education and to make a better life for
themselves and for future generations."
Education of Girls : Government
Interventions
Access To Schooling Improved
Education administrators gave high priority on reducing the infrastructure/access
deficiency. Focused attention on this need has resulted in establishing
a network of 7,67,520 schools at the primary level and 2,74,731
schools at the upper primary level by 2004-05 from just 2,09,671
primary and 13,596 upper primary schools in 1950-51. A large majority
(87%) of these are rural schools. Today 98 per cent of India’s
rural population has access to primary schools within a kilometer
of the habitation.
Greater access to schooling is, however, not enough. Special
measures are called for to help girls join the schools. These
include setting up of girls toilets and providing separate girls’
schools at upper primary level to counter community resistance
to girls’ studying in co-educational schools. Some schools are
residential ones – the recent addition to residential schools
being the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas that target the most
disadvantaged girls at the upper primary stage.
The Government continues to be the major provider of elementary
education with 90.2 per cent primary and 72.2 per cent upper primary
schools managed either by Government or by local bodies. Annual
maintenance grants and school improvement grants are being provided
to each school at the elementary level.
Upswing In Girls’ Enrolment
Growth in access to schooling has been matched by a steady increase
in enrolment with the most dramatic upswing since 1990s in girls
participation levels. From 13.8 million boys and 5.4 million girls
enrolled at the primary level in 1950-51, the number rose to 69.7
million boys and 61.1 million girls in 2004-05. At the upper primary
level, the enrolment increased from 2.6 million boys and 0.5 million
girls to 28.5 million boys and 22.7 million girls.
The proportion of girls in the total enrolment has also been
growing. Girls’ enrolment at the primary stage increased from
28.1% in 1950-51 to 46.7% in 2004-05. At the upper primary stage,
girls’ enrolment rose from 16.1% in 1950-51 to 44.4% in 2004-05.
The overall improvement in girls’ enrolment with respect to total
population of girls clearly shows that there is a near universal
enrolment at primary level. The gap and challenge exists now at
upper primary stage, but there too the gap is narrowing steadily.
Enrolment of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe girls poses
a greater challenge to India’s education administrators. Survey
data, however, revealed that the participation of these disadvantaged
girls in basic education, has grown steadily over the years. G.E.R.
for SC girls at primary level have climbed up from 64.8% in 1986-87
to 106.6% in 2004-05 and at upper primary stage, from as low as
26.6% in 1986-87 to 61.5%in 2004-05. In the case of ST girls,
the GER at primary level have gone up from 68% in 1986-87 to 115.5%
by 2004-05 and from 21.9% in 1986-87 to 59.5% in 2004-05 for upper
primary level.
The overall gender gap in enrolment at the primary stage has
dropped to 4.6 percentage points and that at the upper primary
level has reduced to 8.0 percentage points in 2005. There are
only 48 districts out of a total of 600 districts in India, with
a gender gap above 10 percentage points at the primary stage.
Focused attention is being targeted to these districts by education
policy planners, in order to address the barriers in specific
terms.
Declining Drop Out Rates And Out Of School Girls
Providing access and enrolment to schooling facilities are only
a part of the story. Our aim is also to help the students to continue
their studies. Although the phenomenon of drop outs continue to
be a serious problem in India’s education scenario, the drop out
rates in elementary education have been on the decline, more sharply
so for girls. Girls drop out rate in 2004-05 was lower than for
boys, at primary level i.e 25.42% compared to 31.81% for boys.
Since 2000, girls drop out rates have fallen by 16.5% points in
just four years, compared to a reduction of only 4.1% points over
the entire last decade (1990-2000).
With respect to the situation inside the school it is found that
the repetition rates have been fast declining for girls. Two clear
messages that underlie this trend are: one, that girls who enter
the school system do not leave easily and two, school efficiency
is gradually improving with girls completing the elementary cycle
of education in lesser time.
The number of out of school children have also been declining
rapidly, from 32 million in 2001-02 to 7.5 million in 2006-07.
Of the total age cohort of girls in the 6-14 years age group,
3.9% are reportedly out of school. In the 6-11 years age group,
out of school girls are 3.34 percent and in the 11-14 years age
group they are 5.3 percent. The inclusion of these ‘hard to reach’
and older girls, who have remained excluded from the education
net is being addressed through context specific strategies and
interventions presently.
More Girls Move To Upper Primary The trends in transition rates from Primary to Upper
Primary are also positive. The transition rate has improved from
71.98 in 2003 to 80.64 in 2005. The gains in the transition rates
of girls (8.6 percentage points) have been higher than that of
boys (7.65 percentage points). This has led to sharper decline
in the gender gap in transition rates from 4.03 percentage points
to 3.02 percentage points.
In the case of SC girls, the transition rate has increased from
80 percent in 2004-05 to 83 percent in 2005-06 leaving a gender
gap of 3 percentage points. The picture is comparable in the case
of ST girls for whom the transition rate has increased from 85
percent in 2004-05 to 88 percent in 2005-06 leaving a gender gap
of 2 percentage points.
Constitutional And Policy Framework The Constitution of India in Article 15(1) on right to
equality, provides the basic policy framework that enshrines the
vision of girls’ education and the spirit in which their education
is to be provided.
Until 1976, education was a State subject. Since its transfer
to the Concurrent List by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment in
1976, the Central Government has played a more proactive role
in the sector through several centrally sponsored schemes that
had a distinct bearing on promoting education for girls.
A new thrust was provided to girls’ education in the National
Policy on Education 1986, (as modified in 1992) which provided
a holistic vision for the education of women and girls and recognized
the cross cutting issues that inhibited the realization of this
goal. It aims at using Education as an agent of basic change in
the status of women in society.
The 86th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 has made elementary
education a Fundamental Right for children in the age group of
6-14 years by providing that “the State shall provide free and
compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen
years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine”. This
has been a path breaking legislation in India, where such a major
commitment to the cause of elementary education has bound governments,
community based organizations and civil society into a common
resolve to achieve universal elementary education.
Drawing upon the Constitution and other policy statements articulated
in the years that followed, the Government of India in partnership
with State Governments has designed different strategies, interventions,
schemes and programmes with specific objectives that impinge on
girls’ education. In the second part of this essay we shall look
at some of these programmes and interactions that have begun to
change the face of India. Source
Assamese
Bengali
Bodo
Dogri
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Hindi
Kannada
Kashmiri
Konkani
Maithili
Malayalam
Manipuri
Marathi
Nepali
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Telugu
Urdu
National Anthem Jana gana mana adhinayaka jaya he
Bharata bhagya vidhata
Pañjab Sindhu Gujarata Maratha
Dravida Utkala Vanga
Vindhya Himachala Jamuna Ganga
Uchhala jaladhi taranga
Tava subha name jage
Taba subha ashisha mage
Gaye tava jaya gatha
Jana gana mangala dhayaka jaya he
Bharata bhagya vidhata
Jaya he, jaya he, jaya he
Jaya jaya jaya, jaya he.
National Anthem (Translation) Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India's destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Shindhu,
Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida and Orisa and Bangla;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India's destiny.
victory forever. Source
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