More girls in classrooms: Survey

In a country with a high rate of foeticide, even a small step taken to improve the lot of the girl child is a positive development. And if it is in the field of education, then it sounds even better.

Updated on: Feb 24, 2006, 17:12:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a country with a high rate of foeticide, even a small step taken to improve the lot of the girl child is a positive development. And if it is in the field of education, then it sounds even better.

A latest survey on the dropout rate in government schools in the country shows that the rate of girls leaving schools has declined more than that for the boys. Between 2003-04 and 2005-06, the dropout rate for girls fell by 11 percentage points as compared to 7 for boys.

The rate for boys was about 30 per cent and that for girls about 34 per cent. Officials of the Human Resource Development Ministry attribute this to the success of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

“We have opened 1.29 lakh new schools and have built 1.06 lakh new school buildings, in addition to 2.98 lakh classrooms. Under the scheme, over 4.92 lakh teachers have been recruited,” explained an official, saying schools closer to homes have attracted girls towards education.

The four southern states continue to impress in the area of education for the girl child. But the surprise package is from states like Haryana, Rajasthan and Bihar, where the sex ratio is balanced in favour of men and female foeticide is estimated to be on the higher side. “It appears that parents in these states have realised the importance of educating the girl child. The dropout rate has fallen by up to 15 per cent,” said an official.

SMART BOX
Dropout rate
• In the last two years: the dropout rate for girls fell by 11 per cent
• Sarva Siksha Abhiyan: have opened 1.29 lakh new schools, employed 4.92
lakh teachers

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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