Introduction
Socialization of the girl
child in India seems to have followed a set pattern where she has-been trapped
and moulded by deep-rooted combined cultures of patriarchy and hierarchy. Women
as such can be dubbed as a population at risk because of their limited access
to resources and opportunities and their systematic exclusion from the position
of decision-making. What is more important is that the process of exclusion
tends to start at the grass root, the family level. Herein a girl child is
subjected to kind of languages and practices, which patronize exclusion of
various natures at variety of levels. What could be more heinous than killing
female fetus and infants? The female foeticide and infanticides, the most
horrendous of gender crimes, increasing steeply. It is the violation of the
most basic human rights, the right to be born. Women with higher social status
are likely to be more sensitive to female child’s need and aspiration.
Therefore, education brings economic liberation, which in turn facilitates
social liberation. Further, women’s economic rights in terms of land ownership
and inheritance may be important. The positive aspect is that a good mix of
public policy can influence all these. Meaning thereby, there are chances that
the missing women can be rescued.
Policy Perspectives
The policy framework,
provision of educational opportunities for women and girls has been an important
part of the national endeavor in the field of education since Independence.
Though these endeavors did yield significant results, gender disparities
persist, more so in rural areas and among disadvantaged communities. The
National Policy on Education (NPE, 1986) as revised in 1992 was landmark in the field of policy on women’s
education in that it recognized the need to redress traditional gender
imbalances in educational access and achievement. The NPE also recognized that
enhancing infrastructure alone will not redress the problem. It recognized that
“the empowerment of women is possibly the most critical pre condition for the
participation of girls and women in the educational process”. The programme of
Action (POA, 1992), in the section “Education
for Women’s Equality” (Chapter-XII, pages. 105-107), focuses on empowerment of
women as the critical precondition for their participation in the education
process. The POA states that education can be an effective tool for women’s
empowerment, ensuring equal participation in developmental processes; The
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan stresses on improving access to secondary
schooling to all young person according to norms through proximate location
(say, Secondary Schools within 5 kms, and Higher Secondary Schools within 7-10 kms) / efficient and safe transport
arrangements/residential facilities, depending on local circumstances including
open schooling and ensures that no child is deprived of secondary education of
satisfactory quality due to gender, socio-economic, disability and other
barriers.
Gender Inequality in Access
to Education
Education seems to be the
key factor, which only can initiate a chain of advantages to females. However,
the access to education is differently perceived for male and female. Key
indicators such as literacy, enrollment and years spent in school explain the
situation in the access to education and each of these indicators reveal that
the level of female education in India is still low and lagging far behind
their male counterpart. The low adult literacy rates for women are a reflection
of past underinvestment in the education of women and thus do not necessarily
capture the recent progress. The problem is not only confined to low
enrollments, the girl’s school attendance has also been found incredibly low.
Rural girls belong to disadvantaged groups as if SC and ST present the worst
scenario. As per the data, girl dropout ratio has tended to increase with the
enhancement in the level of education. This clearly outlines the pattern of
gender inequality in access to education, which seems to be deepening as we
move from lower to higher educational attainment and from urban to rural and to
disadvantaged group in the society.
Why Women Remain
Undereducated?
What explains the gender
differentials in educational attainment? What makes women to remain outside the
preview of change? Studies have tried to answer these questions on various
planes. Economic benefits of education and the costs involved in undertaking
such educational attainment have been perceived differently for men and women.
Parents who bear the private costs of investing in schooling for girls and
women fail to receive the full benefits of their investment. This is largely
true because much of the payoff in educating women is broadly social in nature
rather than economic. This endures the gender differentials.
Parent’s perception of
current costs of education and future benefits there from influences the
decision whether girl child should continue taking education or not. Costs are
often measured in terms of distance to school and other direct costs involved
such as fee paid, books bought, dress made etc. At times, the favor to son is
made not only in education but also in allocation of food at mealtime,
distribution of inheritance and even the language used. Apart from economic
costs and benefits, there are costs involved at psychological planes well. The
differential access based on the psychological perceptions is more firm and
real threat. The factors herein include all such motives, which tend to make a
parent reluctant to send daughters to school. One of the glaring factors is the
concern for the physical and moral safety of a girl child which makes parents
unwilling to let them travel distances to school each day. Religion and
socio-cultural factors influence parents’ choice they may tend to search for a
school where only girls are admitted and the one where women teachers are
employed. The concern arises when girls reach puberty even education beyond the
level of literacy for girls may be perceived as threat for their possibilities
for marriage. Studies suggest that in Indian household’s seven-to-nine year old
girls work as many as 120-150 per cent more hours than boys do do. Naturally, girls who would work
more than their brothers at home will have less probability of attending
school. In a joint family, the possibility of increased opportunity costs in
these terms will be more. Does this mean when opportunity costs of educating
girls and boys are identical, both will have equal chances of going to school?
The answer, unfortunately, is no. Parents still keep girls at home to work and
send their sons to school.
Conclusion
Education is one composite
single variable, which has the capacity to transform many odds turning in favor
of girls more specially so in the rural India. Therefore, an exclusive emphasis
on girls’ education is necessary. Education for adolescent girls is constraint
due to many factors; the most prominent of them is non-availability of
infrastructure and schools. Secondly, the travel time taken in reaching school,
fear of crime and unknown eventuality would rise therefore provision of public
transport exclusively for girl child is necessary. A legal provision would help
rescue girls from the early marriages and open doors of development for them.
Awareness programme are needed which would focus on the dynamics of nutrition
in physical and mental growth. However, it is to be reiterated at the end that
girls need a lot of compassionate treatment and favor to enable them to lead a
respectable and meaningful life, and in ensuring this, the role of family
members and society is undoubtedly crucial and of prime significance and the
change attitude of elders towards girls is urgently called for.
By Swaleha.A.Sindhi
Countercurrents.org
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें