COVID-19 ROLLS BACK PROGRESS ON FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA.
In the 2011 census, the feminine literacy rate in India was 65.2 per cent. The school dropout rate for women was 52.2 per cent. The reasons cited for the high dropout rate included the high cost of education, household or subsistence labour, desire to figure, early marriage, school accessibility, safety, sanitation concerns in schools and a scarcity of interest in studies.
The right to education was legislated in India in 2009. A declining poverty rate, expanding school infrastructure and changes in social attitudes have increased enrolments over the last decade. Several initiatives are key to pushing numbers up, including the Swachh Bharat Mission, a national sanitation and hygiene program. It contributed to the doubling of faculties with boundary walls and usable toilets. In 2008, quite 20 per cent of 15–16-year-old girls were not enrolled, declining significantly to 13.5 per cent in 2018. And in 2018, for the primary time, the dropout rate for women was less than males at the first and secondary levels.
The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the critical progress that has been achieved. Up to 10 million girls are in danger of throwing in the towel of lyceum thanks to the pandemic.
Widening gender inequality and increasing poverty is placing female education at greater risk. The gender parity index value — the ratio of girls to boys in education — had long been but one. In the last couple of years, it is equalised, but the pandemic has increased poverty, reversed migration and job losses — risking school dropouts, particularly for vulnerable girls.
Girls are at greater risk of being bereft of their education as they are pushed towards unpaid and paid labour also as child marriage in times of crisis. Likely, a lot of adolescent girls who stop getting to school during the pandemic will never return.
Populous states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have lower female literacy rates than the national average. The risk of women throwing in the towel during pandemics and ending up in early marriage, trafficking, pregnancy and violence is higher in these states.
In Bihar, a scarcity of faculty infrastructure has meant longer travel distances to attend school. In Bihar’s poorer regions, the government had provided bicycles to women. This led to good results because the number of girls registering for school increased from 175,000 to 600,000 in four years. But now schools are closed for over a year and re-registering those from rural areas is about to become a serious challenge.
As the new school session begins in July, the govt should collect gender-segregated data from village councils in rural areas. The change in class enrolments for women should be carefully tracked. Online education will likely continue a few times, potentially limiting the worth of education, and fogeys who became won't to having their daughters home might not want to send them back to in-person study. Gathering better data about enrolments would help inform the strategies and sorts of action needed to succeed in bent girls in danger of throwing in the towel.
Home visits by educational representatives including teachers to motivate girls to re-register could be one such approach. Scholarships and cash transfers are another that might make a difference keep the poorest girls in class.
The class structure has always been an element that deters school education for youngsters coming from marginalised communities. Over 50 per cent of Dalit children drop out of college. The female enrolment ratio for scheduled castes has always been low. Providing these families with the monetary means for enrolment will bring more children back to high school, and therefore the greatest impact would be felt by females on the sting of throwing in the towel. Educational aids and counselling can also be required.
Midday Meal, a school-based lunch program, was designed to extend enrolments within the spirit of universal access to education. The program has been particularly effective at boosting female enrolment. Throughout the pandemic, the govt issued food security allowances for youngsters forced to review reception. Yet a performance audit has indicated that children still don't receive food reception in some states. It is critical to bring children back to high school not only for their educational needs but also for his or her health and nutritional needs.
Many children omitted education during the pandemic because they didn't have access to online educational resources. Yet the pandemic has made it possible to develop new real-time online education models. The government should increase funding for research into viable online education models, particularly for poor girls in remote rural areas. Digitalisation could present breakthroughs for the longer term of equal education in India.
Girls’ education is a crucial thing about economic development — numerous studies have demonstrated that GDP increases with female education. A reversal of India’s progress will bring long-term adverse developmental impacts unless greater action is taken.