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Enrollment of girls in Rajasthan schools shows slight improvement
Enrollment of girls in schools has seen slight improvement in last one year. From 84.62 girls for every 100 boys in 2015-16 to 85.06 girls enrolled in both private and government schools in 2016-17, states comparative study of Elementary Education: State Report Card.
Enrollment of girls in schools has seen slight improvement in last one year. From 84.62 girls for every 100 boys in 2015-16 to 85.06 girls enrolled in both private and government schools in 2016-17, states comparative study of Elementary Education: State Report Card. The slight rise is attributed to attainment of toilets in all schools and separate toilets for girls in co-education schools along with integration of schools at gram panchayat level by giving girls the opportunity to complete secondary and senior secondary at one school.
The data shows some major surprises with lowest girls:boys ratio recorded in general and minorities' categories. Both social categories have made very thin improvement in girls' enrollment as compared to other social categories.
Rajasthan has 11% minority population which includes 9.02% Muslims. However, overall percentage of enrollments of minorities in primary classes was 8.88% and it further reduces to 6.69% in upper primary classes. Experts say that the trend indicates mass dropout among minorities going unchecked.
OBC communities have recorded highest progress in girls' enrollment from 84.45% in 2015-16 to 85.33% in academic session which ended recently. State has successfully contained dropout among girls. This fact is reinforced by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) which stated that dropout among girls fell down from 12% in 2014-15 to 9% in 2016-17.
"Progress in the girls' enrollment is gradual and welcoming but still state is far behind from most of the states. Until the figure touches 90 and more, state should continue its focus on girl education," said KB Kothari, senior educationist.
Experts attributed the fairly better girl enrollment among SC and ST to existing schemes and policies like scholarships, hostels and cash rewards. Moreover dedicated enrollment drives are making the progress possible. State scheme of providing cash reward of Rs 51,000 in different phases staring from enrollment of a girl child in class I till class XII in a government school has been encouraging for parents towards educating girl child.
Source – Times of India | Image used for representational purposes only.