Dr. Lalit Kishore

BARRIERS TO GIRLS' EDUCATIONIN RURAL AND REMOTE AREAS OF

INDIA

Situation:

• Intractable patriarchal communities

with ascribed low status to women and

early marriages

Gender dimension:

• Educating girls not valued or seen

irrelevant by the community males.

• At times girls' education is seen in

conflict with accepted gender roles in

local community and hence resisted

Situation:

• First generation learner families in the remote

small habitations and difficult social groups.

Gender dimension:

• If a choice has to be made between sending a

boy or a girl to school, the boy is usually given

precedence.

Situation:

Increased availability of private primary schools with

English medium in big villages and small towns.

Gender dimension:

The families tend to send girls to free government schools

and boys to private schools.

Situation:

• The upper-primary school not being close to home.

Gender dimension:

• Issues of safely and security are raised and reluctance to

send daughters to schools is shown if they have to travel on

their own.

Situation:

• Lack of female teachers in rural schools.

Gender dimension:

• The rural families get reluctant to send girls to school for

the fear of exploitation and harassment by male teachers.

Situation:

• Lack of toilet facilities..

Gender dimension:

• A feeling of inadequacy and discomfort by girls in the school and hence a tendency to dropout.

Situation:

• The traditional division of labour at home in rural areas with girls taking up the responsibilities for collecting fuel, fodder and water; and taking care of cattle, siblings and sick..

Gender dimension:

• Girls get disadvanged for education since sending girls to school results in loss of family income.

Situation:

• Limited participation of the community and mothers in

the school.

Gender dimension:

• General school practices of school-community links are

weak and do not involve mothers for their concern for

educating their daughters.

Situation:

• Sex differentiated child rearing practices enforcing

secondary status to the girls in the family.

Gender dimension:

• A mind set of the families to invest in girls' education

Situation:

• Indirect and hidden costs of education which many poor families

can not afford..

Gender dimension:

• Poor families do not enrol girls to school since indirect and hidden

costs are as loss of income despite the free education.

Situation:

• Inadequate infrastructural facilities and school environment

coupled with lack of water and sanitation.

Gender dimension:

• The lower status to girls in schools and often forced to do the

service tasks like cleaning and doing odd jobs for teachers.

Situation:

• No attempt made at local level by educational functionaries to incorporate locally relevant curriculum to the uniform core curriculum.

Gender dimension:

• Gender and social discrimination issues remain invisible in the context and images of curriculum.

Situation:

• Inadequate legal framework in areas like Elementary Education, as a Fundamental Right, re-entry to school, corporal punishment, inclusive education, child labour and child rights

Gender dimension:

• The education is not free and compulsory in principle and practice, more so for girls due to inflexible school timings, lack of political will, patch work and quick fixes, ineffective poverty education programme and continued general preference for sons in the society.