Girl Child in India

Though India is a signatory to all the major human rights instruments and its constitution makes a commitment to establish an egalitarian society, still there is a vast difference between theory and practice.

The girl child in India is discriminated socially, psychologically, economically and in violation of laws. She is considered a transitory member of family and a burden as she is to be married off with huge dowry. She is not, if she is at all born and alive, sent to school at all or made to depart soon after joining at the slightest pretext her rights take a back seat in comparison to those of a son or male child who would be a bread winner one day and heir of the family. She has to help in all household chores, fetch water, cook, bring fuel and fodder and look after the animals and siblings. If she goes to work to land a helping hand to family, she is paid less than boys. She is taken to a hospital only in emergency and is given no immunization.

Though the situation is fast households, still a girl child's demands are met with reluctance and that too only after meeting the demands of the male child, the situation is worse in rural, poor sectors of the society where the very survival is often at the stake.

A girl / woman is never seen as an individual, but only as a daughter, sister, wife or mother. Either she is worshipped as a Goddess, who only gives and never demands or she is treated as a slave with no say even in matters concerning her own life. She is confined to house and kitchen, not expected to speak in a loud voice or even at independently not to speak of asserting herself.

Right to Education and Girl Child

If the most basic value is of survival and everything comes after that the first right is the right to be born and not to be aborted purely because one is a girl. This right of survival is being snatched away (female feticide) with the help of modern science and technology in contravention to existing laws that forbid any such activities. Women, due to their ignorance of such laws and help unavailable at hand in adverse circumstances suffer unspeakably because they are not educated and hence are unable to defend their unborn and fend for themselves in such circumstances. If a girl is born, despite all efforts to the contrary, the question comes of their right to remain alive and live, live with dignity, and as an individual a term not understood well in connection with female species. Here we are concerned, directly with the right to education. This also implies the right to information about law, health care and opportunities in different fields of activity including the right to a career. Only when this right is protected one can expect to have a congenial atmosphere for the protection and promotion of human rights of women.

It is widely accepted that formal schooling between 6-11 years of age is vital for proper development of the child, when supplemented by mother at home. Hence, education by formal or informal means can become a major tool for removing the bias against the girl child. It will usher in a new era for her and for her country. She will become an asset and not a burden, if a girl child is educated. To repeat the words of Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, 'To awake the people, it is the woman who must be awakened, once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves and the nation moves.'

Theoretically and formally all agree that educating a girl child is essential still their education does not get the highest Priority among the families, survival concerns in a state of abject poverty. Even when education is free, there are many costs to attending a school including uniforms, textbooks and participation in social activities of the school. Added to this is the opportunity cost of sending girls to school when they could be helping at home with household work or with family's income-earning activities. This also explains the higher school drop out rate for girls when they are growing up, since their opportunity cost for staying at school keeps increasing for their families.

The supply side factors such as lack of conveniently located schools, flexible hours, irrelevant curricula, non availability of female teachers and the absence of single sex schools play an even greater role in preventing girls from enrolling in schools. The location of a school is an important factor affecting parent’s decision. Longer distance is often perceived as a threat to a daughter’s security and might make the parents reluctant to send their daughters to school. So, all these factors will have to be accounted for while planning for girl education if we have to succeed.

Importance of educating the Girl Child

Education in essence, has two main objectives; to instill broad based knowledge, including professional skills, which enables a person to deal with the material demands of his/her life, and secondly, to make him or her a particular kind of person - a person who can live at peace with himself and his fellow human beings and in harmony with animate and inanimate nature.

Looked at in this manner, education becomes a very powerful instrument for protection and promotion of human rights if right type of education is provided to all right from the beginning. Education helps a person grow cognitively,

intellectually and emotionally and enables a person to take right decisions on the basis of logic and reason. It is my firm belief that if women are to be empowered and their human rights protected and promoted in India, we will have to concentrate on educating the girl child who is often discriminated against and whose rights are relegated to background in comparison to those of the male child and the irony of all this is that she is not even aware of the prevailing situation which undermines her worth as an individual and makes her a second grade citizen.

Girl Education in India

India has the largest illiterate population in the world (429 million) which exceeds the total combined population of the North American Continent and Japan. But in some ways India's progress has been remarkable too, the adult literacy rate has nearly tripled since 1951 from 18 percent in 1951 to 52 percent in 1991 and 65 percent in 2001.

The task of providing elementary education to all is massive and is made even more difficult as India spends less than

4 percent of its GNP on education and still then has devoted only half of its expenditure on elementary level education. This is unfortunate because if elementary education had properly been looked after and been made compulsory, (as was discussed in the constituent assembly of India and not accepted) 11, India would have become almost fully educated by now and would have entered the category of developed nations instead of logging behind as a developing state despite over half a century of independent status.

As far as education of girls is concerned there is much left desired in India and the sorry state of education needs, sincere and concerted efforts for showing some improvement and progress in the desired direction. The traditional value of girl education in India was teaching the ideals of motherhood and of making the home beautiful and attractive. The middle and higher classes of India have long suffered from the duality of an educated manhood and ignorant womanhood - a dualism that looses the whole levels of home and domestic life and has its reaction on personal and national character. Education of women, especially in the higher stages will make available to the country a wealth of capacity that is now largely wasted through lack of opportunity. It is only through education that women can realize their capabilities in the true sense and contribute in national development at the same time. It is also natural that education of girl child will lead to her empowerment and later of women at a larger scale.

It is through education and education only that the grand finale in all acts of discrimination against the girl child, the act of female feticide and infanticide (femicide), aimed to remove from the face of the earth the very womb from which was born the man, can be stopped from being played to the detriment and irrevocable harm to human kind.

The real and viable solution to this discrimination against the girl child lies in education. Here it must be remembered that mere literacy would not do, rather the need is to educate both the male and female of the homosapien species known as human beings as to their collective and separate roles; without failing to emphasize their equality. Education must emphasize that in a modern technological world, it is the intellect and not the muscle that will dominate production and means of livelihood. That need for absorption of knowledge and the ability to put to use this knowledge is the key to development and success, must be understood by all. That the girl is not a mere reproductive tool but rather a partner in progress must be understood by the society. This understanding on the part if society is imperative for eradicating the evil of discrimination against half of the human race.

Social Benefits of Education

Education may be seen as a means of empowerment; control over one's life in more than just in economic sense. Education is not merely a means for better income and employment, opportunities for individuals or for higher economic growth potential for their nations. The social benefits of education spread in many directions. Education leads to better health care, smaller family norms, greater community and political participation, less economic inequality and a greater reduction of absolute poverty-social benefits that a narrow economic approach to education fails to capture.

Education leads to many social benefits - improvement in standards of hygiene, reduction in infant and child mortality rates, decline in population growth rates, increase in labor production, greater political empowerment and democratization, and an improved sense of national unity and integrity. It has been accepted that the rate of return on education, primarily primary education, even more on the girl child, is very high. Still India has been struggling to universalize elementary education over half a century and yet has not been able to declare it as a fundamental right or make it compulsory.

Not only in the urban areas but in the rural areas too people are well aware of the potential benefits from education. These are perceived as being of different kinds. The most widespread is the demand for functional literacy, especially among women, the ability to read numbers, communicate with officials, write letters, use ration cards, read documents/papers before putting their thumb impression or signing them etc, all the diverse ways in which literacy and numeracy are almost essential in a monetized and increasingly urbanized economy. Literacy or education is also seen as a safety net, once again specially for women it may not be seen as an essential attribute to play the role of mother, wife and partner in work, but in case of misfortune, some level of literacy will afford better chances of earning an independent income.

Education for Removing Gender Disparities:

Education can became a very powerful instrument for protection and promotion of human rights, if right type of education is provided to all right from the beginning. For this, first of all gender disparities will have to be reduced and finally removed, not an easy task of any means. This can be achieved only when girls are helped to value their own worth and usefulness to the society and this can be done only by educating them.

To provide universal elementary education to all first of all, all gender disparities will have to be removed, especially in a country like India whose religious and socio-cultural traditions favor the male child.

The Jamtien Declaration (1990) was quite specific on this point; "The most urgent policy is to ensure access to, and improve the quality of, education for girls and women. The report presents a severe point agenda for accelerating girl’s education and for eliminating gender disparities. Some of the suggestions that should be taken care of India are,

1. Compulsory primary education laws' must be enacted and penalties for non-enrollment of girls should be severe. (It is the primary duty of parents to enroll and keep their children in schools and should be made so by law of the land).

2. Grants for education by the central government to provincial/state governments or by various governments to NGO's should contain a provisions that the amount of grant be reduced by the extent of disparity that prevails in the enrolment of girls and boys.

3. Supply side constraints should be overcome; for example by locating schools within easy reach of community, by maintaining, flexible hours, by establishing single sex school's if so desired by the community, and by offering scholarships to girl students to compensate their families for loss of their economic work at home.

4. The provision of more female teachers is a critical factor, the proportion of female teachers should be raised from the present 31 percent to at least 50 percent as soon as possible.

5. Community participation in planning and managing schools should be increased.

6. Concrete steps must be taken to enhance the overall status of women in society.

Recurring Policy Recommendations to Promote Education of Girls

• Schools within walking distance, closer to the place of dwelling, if necessary satellite schools for remote hamlets.
• Provide child care facilities/creche within school premise
• Escort for girls, if schools are away from the village or hamlet
• Introduce flexible schools timings and region specific school calendar.
• Provide alternative modes/forms, combine formal with non-formal, condensed coursed for dropout, residential schools (ashram shalas) for special focus groups like nomadic tribes and others.
• Residential condensed education programme for adolescent girls and young women who dropped out of school or never enrolled (Mahila Shikshan Kendra).
• More women teachers in rural areas, with residential accommodation.
• Expand pool of women teachers by lowering qualifications, intensive training (near the place of dwelling), provide regular educational support, organize special condensed courses for dropouts who can be trained to work as teachers, provide secure accommodation for out station teachers, and so on.
• Make curriculum relevant to the lives of poor women who are engaged in battle for survival.
• Recognize the problem of working children, provide special facilities.
• Introduce facilities for 'bridge programs" to enable dropouts to re-enter the school system.
• Provide incentives such as uniforms, textbooks, exercise books, attendance scholarship and free bus passes.
• Involve the community in managing the school through advocacy, mobilization and formation of village education committees with at least 50% women members.
• Improve quality of education; motivate teachers to make learning a joyful exercise.
• Decentralize educational planning and administration; bring it closer to people so that it reflects the special needs and aspirations of community.
• Address management issues that inhibit the implementation of government policy, like grievance redressal, administrators and teachers union's resistance to flexible timings and school calendar, make teachers feel wanted and appreciated.
• Recruit women with lesser qualifications from rural areas, recruit local youth in remote areas where teacher's absenteeism is rampant, appoint teachers to a specific school and so on.
• Mobilize public opinion for primary education and universal literacy in general and women's education in particular. Advocate for greater political will and administrative commitment. Make it a national mission with time-bound 'targets' - a la National Literacy Mission (NLM), National Elementary Education Mission (NEEM).