With the aim to improve the education of girls, the ministry of human resource and development, department of school education and literacy have developed a digital gender Atlas tool, with the support of UNICEF.
Atlas, which is made keeping in view the interest and data of all the UTs, states, districts and blocks, will help identify the geographic pockets for girls which aren't performing well, particularly from marginalized groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities, on specific gender related education indicators.
"The purpose of the Gender Atlas is to help, identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities. To ensure its feasibility, the Gender Atlas has been developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met," reads a recent circular of MHRD.
The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.
Using available government data such as the unified district information system for education (U-DISE) data (2011-2014), census 2011 data and district level health survey (DLHS) 2007- 08, the Gender Atlas enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls' education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
{{/usCountry}}Using available government data such as the unified district information system for education (U-DISE) data (2011-2014), census 2011 data and district level health survey (DLHS) 2007- 08, the Gender Atlas enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls' education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
{{/usCountry}}The main components of the Gender Atlas include composite gender ranking, trend analysis of gender indicators, vulnerabilities based on educational indicators in districts with substantial tribal, schedule caste, minority population in educationally backward blocks and in left wing extremist districts, and the low sex ratio districts selected under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme.
"Atlas visualises the performance status of a single indicator related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14. The performance status of an individual indicator can be visualised at state and district level," adds the circular by MHRD.