“When women are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.” – Michelle Obama.
We are in 2021, still education for female is a big issue. Many fail to understand that educating girls will not only contribute to the girl’s health and wealth but also will improve the prospect of the entire community, country, and the world at large.
Condition of Female literacy in India
India is still struggling to achieve the equality in gender, as there are still just 940 girls per 1000 males. Girls are still considered as a burden and the mindset is that they are just meant for managing the household stuff. They are denied education because their families believe investing in their daughter’s education would be a waste of money.
The gap between male literacy rate and female literacy rate in India is 21.6 percentage points. Which is a big difference, and it will take good time to narrow this gap.
Why the focus is to provide education to unprivileged girls in 2021?
A lot of reasons contribute to the barriers in the education of unprivileged girls, some are-Poverty, cultural norms, infrastructure, child marriage, gender-based violence, and poor families usually invest in the education of the male child and very minimum or no in the case of girl child.
The idea is to provide primary education to each girl in all the possible cities, villages, and slums.
This is very challenging because the dropout ratio and the retention rate is very poor. The problem is in the mindset. Families are not supportive enough and their own participation is also faulty. Providing the infrastructure and bare minimum facilities will not help, they may require motivation to understand the importance of education.
The government is taking a lot of initiatives, they are providing funds and the infrastructure. The harsh reality is that the schools are poorly structured, lacks hygiene,and teacher’s absenteeism is also a demotivating factor.
Now, many NGOs are taking action to provide the needful to the unprivileged.
Graphhene Foundation, an NGO in Noida, which is constantly working to the contribute to the society by providing the basic education to the unprivileged. They are not only providing education but also making them aware of why there is a need of education.
Through the education, they will start dreaming, hoping, and working for their own selves and for their families.