E-Paper
More girls completing their schooling in Uttar Pradesh now, show government stats
Growing awareness towards girl child education in Uttar Pradesh is yielding positive results, with increasing numbers of girls enrolling in higher levels of education. In 2021-22, 88.28% of girls enrolled for upper primary after completing primary education, while 79.74% of girls who passed Class 10 took admission in Class 11. Girls in UP also outperformed boys in the recent UP Board exams. Government efforts and incentives have contributed to the increase in girls' education and decrease in dropout rates.
Growing awareness towards girl child education and constant efforts of the government to encourage education among girls seem to be yielding good results in Uttar Pradesh, if the data of the state presented at the latest meeting of Project Approval Board of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan for 2023-24 held in New Delhi is any indication.
As per the statistics presented by the state government in the meeting, confirmed minutes of which have only recently become available, in 2018-19, 80.2% girl students who completed primary level education (Class 5) enrolled for upper primary level (Class 6). In the same year, 79.6% of girls who passed Class 8 also took admission in Class 9 and 65.4% of girls who passed Class 10 exams took admission in Class 11.
In a visible improvement over this, only two years later in 2021-22, the number of girl students who enrolled for upper primary (Class 6) after completing primary education (Class 5) was 88.28% and girls passing Class 8 and taking admission in Class 9 stood at 80.30%.
The most significant change has been seen in the girl students who passed Class 10. In 2021-22, 79.74% of girl students took admission in Class 11 which was 14.34% more as compared to 65.4% three years ago, said the minutes of the meeting, a copy of which is with HT.
Impressive performance of girls in the field of education is also testified by the recorded of UP Board where the girls have been bagging top positions on a regular basis and not just their overall pass percentage being better than the boys but number of girls appearing in the high school and intermediate exams too being more than the boys.
Out of 15,47,558 registered boys in the intermediate examination of 2023, 14,07,572 or 90.95% appeared in the examination. Out of 12,20,622 girl students, 11,63,430 or 95.31% appeared in the exam. Likewise, out of 16,91,005 boys registered for high school exams in 2023, 15,15,809 or 89.63% appeared in the examination. Out of 14,15,152 girl students, 13,39,070 or 94.62 % appeared in the exam.
Former secretary, UP Board, Neena Srivastava, said, “Awareness towards girl child education has definitely and significantly increased. Due to the facilities and incentives being provided by the government, the number of girl students going to school has increased and the dropout rate too has decreased, which is a good thing for the country.”
