Long and Arduous Road

There’s a curious irony that every year March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day with growing enthusiasm, even as the status of women in Indian society remains static, if it hasn’t deteriorated. Of course in a nation which has developed a unique capability for celebrating ritual, there was no shortage of politically correct speeches on the day. many leaders stress that women’s rights are the edifice on which human rights stand; and a few special women's empowerment schemes have also been announced.

But beyond tokenism and displays of lachrymose sentimentality, the ground reality is this: the national male-female ratio is an alarming 1000:933; only 54.16 per cent of the women are literate; close to 15,000 women succumb to dowry torture annually and 130,000 women face the worst forms of assault upon their mental and physical well being every year.

Even as politicians and the urban middle class indulge in helpless hand wringing, educationists and social scientists are increasingly veering around to the view that persistent gender biases and oppression of women are rooted in post-independence India’s failed education system, particularly in the conspicuous failure of successive governments at the centre and in the states to universalise elementary education. According to the Union government’s own (suspect) statistics 35 percent of the nation’s adult population is comprehensively illiterate — the majority of them women. And it’s pertinent to note that literacy is less than synonymous with education.

Inevitably, there is no shortage of informed opinion that education of girl children is the prerequisite of national socio-economic development.UNICEF also acknowledges the fact that "Girls’ education is the most effective means of combating many of the most profound challenges to human development. Education is vital in emergencies… For communities, strategies for providing girls to complete their education yields benefits for all." Yet in the developing nations of the third world 135 million children between the ages of seven and 18 have received no education at all and of them more than 60 per cent are girl children. This gender disparity in education translates into other deprivations such as food, sanitation facilities, safe drinking water, shelter and information.

However it’s important to note that although gender disparities in education are particularly accentuated in the Indian subcontinent, they are not peculiar to it.Bias against women’s education is operational worldwide in varying forms. For example in Poland, school textbooks routinely stereotype women as mothers and housewives. The Indian bias against women’s education dates back to the colonial period, when only a minority of upper caste and middle class women were allowed access to formal education, and even then, they were confined to separate curricula, often focused on domestic skills and moral and religious education.

Many Indians explains why educating the girl child remains a low national priority: "A boy’s education is generally viewed as a possibility of increasing the earnings and status of the family. The value of a daughter’s education is gauged in terms of her marriage prospects. However, marriage of an educated girl carries its own practical difficulties, and the benefits of her education in any case are seen as going to her husband’s family. Therefore the desire or motivation to send girls to school and ensure its completion is circumscribed by high economic costs, unfriendly school environments and social sanctions."

The Government is a mere component of the larger community. Therefore there is a critical need to explain what people can expect from their local or district governments. If communities can get mobilised for politics why not for education? People should understand that it’s not acceptable if daughters don’t attend school and the community should take it upon itself to chastise offenders. Moreover it is important that grand government plans are broken into understandable targets. The common villager should know that his focus is not some aggregate enrollment figure but the little girl in his village who doesn’t attend school.

Fortunately the tonnes of written material and informed opinions high-lighting the critical importance of educating girl children is beginning to impact India’s hide-bound educracy. A high-potential Union ministry of HRD initiative is the Mahila Samakhya (MS), which addresses the constraints which prevent girl children from accessing quality education. It provides official support to women’s collectives to assist and monitor educational activities in villages.

Another community-based approach which is yielding results in India’s most populous state is the year-long residential learning camp for girls. Local communities, NGOs and the state government have joined hands to ensure that girls between the ages of ten and 14 who have never experienced school are given another chance. Similar enterprises are underway elsewhere.

Although these initiatives are belated and few and far between, they have served the very useful purpose of building a societal consensus on the need to educate girl children in the larger national interest. Simultaneously there is an emerging consensus that instead of flogging the almost dead horse that is the government educracy, support to the cause of women’s education has to come in the form of parental and community involvement, low cost and flexible timetables, new curricula which avoid gender stereotypes, schools closer to home with more female teachers and early childhood care to boost the self esteem of girl children and prepare them for school.

Given the inexplicable neglect of elementary education — and particularly education of the girl child — in post-independence India for which the nation is paying a heavy price, the road to gender parity is likely to prove long and arduous. But if India is ever to join the league of developed nations it’s a road that will have to be travelled quickly. Fortunately a national consensus has emerged that getting every girl child in school is the prerequisite for breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty and deprivation, halting the spread of killer diseases, ensuring better lives for generations to come, and creating an equitable social order. In short, towards creating a new India fit for the 21st century.