Education
As we change with the world, so should the girls’ education system.
We complete 100 years of girls’ education; from no schools to boys school to all girls college, we have come a long way. But have we reached where we had to?
All of us want to see our kids becoming successful. The main source of success is knowledge which is only possible through good education. It's been 100 years of girls' education and educational institutions and still a lot needs to be developed.
According to the 2011 Census, the literacy percentage in Ahmedabad city was 83.85% females and 92.3% males. A century before that, in 1911, the numbers were 3.08% for women and 12.1% for men. In over a century, the literacy gap between men and women has narrowed down but by a meagre 0.57%.
In the beginning, parent's favoured boys education over girls for they believed that their daughters will take care of the house and so it'll be of no use to them. The son will go out to earn and run a household which is why it is important for him to study. Gradually, things started to change.
Ahmedabad city opened two vernacular schools in 1826 but in 1849 the city got its first girls' school which were run by Gujrat Vernacular Society. The student strength grew from one to 20 in just a year. Harkuwar Shethani began supporting the school in 1850. She gave 3,000 rupees for construction and 12,000 for maintenance. The British then gave her a title of 'Nek Namdar Sakhavati Bahadur.'
In 1871, city's first women's college opened near Khamasa Ahmedabad but was developed after an industrialist, Bechardas Lashkari donated 10,000 rupees and renamed it to Mahalaxmi Female Training College in 1874.That helped in spreading awareness about girls education and its importance. Vidyagauri Neelkanth and her sister Sharda Mehta became Ahmedabad's (and Gujarat's) first female graduates in 1901, passing out from Gujarat College.
After looking at the progress, Vithalbhai Patel in 1917, made primary education compulsory in Bombay Presidency and literacy rates improved. With the ongoing Freedom Struggle, the number of female students rose in Ahmedabad and after independence, college enrolment spiked among girls. Yet, the rural areas remained untouched by this. For them, finding a good groom still topped the priority list.
"A century ago, the pitch was to educate girls to make them better homemakers," says Gaurang Jani, associate professor at GU "A century later, we see many girls completing their graduation but never taking up jobs."
Mosam Trivedi earned a PhD for her study, 'A Century of Women's Education in Ahmedabad City (1911-2011) from Gujrat University's sociology department said in an interview;
"The number of girls still plummets when transitioning from secondary and higher secondary levels to graduate courses and drops further in postgraduate and technical courses," says Trivedi. "While Gujarat produced its first women graduates in 1901, women graduates among the state's SC, ST, and OBC communities emerged only in the past 20 to 30 years." The rise in higher education is primarily among the upper castes.
In the early 20th century, the literary sources don't reflect much encouragement for female education. Child marriage was a major contributor to low literacy even though most of the social reformers attacked such traditions and practices. Mahatma Gandhi in Ahmedabad commented on girls not being able to go to school because of early marriage and said "The husband has to repent for the sin by making sure that the girl gets educated."
But if we look the current statistics -in 2000-01, the number of boys was 1.12lakh and girls was 1.11 lakh. (2.23 lakh in total). After a decade, the numbers decreased to 75,437 of boys and 77,482 of girls and overall decreased to 1.52 lakh. Experts explained these lower figures as the parents decision of admitting their children to private schools with better means.
Studies show that even though we've come a long way in revolutionizing education, even now, boys are the first preference. Women have started doing there bit by taking up jobs after graduation and post graduation and they have built up the courage to face the world and the small mentality of society that is still against girl education. A little more efficiency can put an end to this difference.