Process of Girls’ Dropout in School Education: Analysis of Selected Cases in India (PDF)
It is unanimously accepted by many that schooling has innumerable benefits for the child. But the irony of the fact is that even after 62 years of its independence, a vast majority of Indian children, especially girls are deprived of these benefits. As the statistic shows that 60% of all children from rural areas in the age group 6-14 years do not enroll themselves in schools, and dropout rate at the elementary level is found as high as 60% (Sixth All India Education Survey). As with other educational indicators, regional and gender disparities are conspicuous in regard to enrolment and retention. Undoubtedly, due to special measures adopted by several state governments in the past decade, the rate of growth of enrolment of girls at the national level have been higher than that of boys, but disparities still persist in regards to retention aspect of schooling. The dropout rate of girls of the primary and upper primary stage is higher than that of boys.
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The posting about the Indian situation reflects a serious divorce between so called post-independence development in developing countries and the reality of shifting the balance of such 'development ' in favour of mankind. Yes, so many astronomical advancements have been made in terms of national science, economics, military hardware, commerce, etc. It is a shame that not the same keenness is being observed in advancing human rights and gender equity in education! India, like Africa (where this writer hails from) is still grossly entangled in customary / traditional shackles of favouring one gender (mostly men) at the expense of the other (often women). My begging question is: how can the world graciously fend off such callous attitudes and practices towards members of it own society? A lot has been mentioned on creating conducive legislature, pro-people policies, lobby & advocacy, pressure groups, commitment to international humanitarian charters, education, committing more resources to address the gaps. How long shall we continue with just lip-service? It is time to set workable mechanisms of persuasion, pressure and compliance that fits with local realities in communities/societies still dragging the whole world behind in balancing the gender equation.