Girls in Rural India - a Background

Millions of girls in India have to face a lot of barriers

Women in India continue to face discrimination and unequal power relations on a daily basis, making it difficult to access their rights as equal citizens.

The Education Crisis

Of the 263 million children that are not in school right now, 130 million of them are girls, most of them living in developing countries.

In India, girls must fight through many barriers to access education. They have to fight through child marriage, poverty, and patriarchy in order to get an education.

In response, the United Nations (UN) has gotten many countries involved in its Sustainable Development Goal of quality education and gender equality by 2030. This goal is dedicated to helping bridge the gender gap in education, which can, in turn, help many people in overcoming poverty.

Source: http://www.greenhubs.net/2015/12/goal4.html

What Does Education Look Like in India?

Girls in India have historically been considered the "lesser" child. Girls in India usually receive less food, less education, and less healthcare than their male counterparts.

Girls usually receive less education than boys do in India, however, India has made significant progress towards reducing the gender education disparity.

Progress

India has shown significant improvement towards the universalization of education at the primary level. In data taken in 2016 by the Government of India, there was a 98% improvement in primary school enrollment and retention rates. Also, recent data indicates that there is a significant increase in the participation of girls at all levels of education (primary to secondary).

However, while India has made significant progress, they still have the largest number in South Asia of children not receiving an education, at 11.9 million (UNICEF, 2014). A large portion of the children in this number are living in extreme poverty and/or live in marginalized, rural, or tribal groups.

Also, their secondary education program needs some major improvements.

"According to the World Bank (2011), “while more than 95 percent of children attend primary school, just 40 percent of Indian adolescents attend secondary school (grades 9-12).”

Source: https://yourstory.com/2018/10/girls-not-in-school

What Are Some of the Main Barriers to Adolescent Girls' Education in India?

While India has made a lot of effort and a lot of progress toward girls' education, the results are only mainly being seen at the primary level. Educational equality progress at the secondary level has not shown much improvement.

Some of the main barriers include: child marriage, patriarchal norms, poverty, sexual harassment, menstruation issues, and poor quality of education.

Child Marriage

Child marriage is a major barrier to the education of girls in India for many reasons. The idea of marriage being the end goal for a woman in India, not only perpetuates gender inequality and poverty but also denies girls their right to an education.

They also will not receive the social support or autonomy they need in order to explore life and the potential they have to live a life of dignity.

In the latest 2011 census data, almost one in every three married women was a child bride. However, nationally, child marriages have decreased from 43.5% in 2001 to 30.2% in 2011. The government and other non-profits helped reduce this number. This is due to an increased awareness of the negative effects of this practice.

Patriarchal Norms

"Patriarchal mindsets dictate a powerful preference for sons, with the result that girls are often relegated to second-class citizenship (Modi, 2017)."

The women are usually expected to follow the stereotypical role of being a wife and a mother. When they reach adolescence, they are faced with extreme pressure to fit into the patriarchal norms and to find a husband.

If the girls in the household do not uphold these norms and stereotypical roles, they can bring shame and dishonor to their family.

Poverty

Poverty makes girls more likely to drop and to get married because that is their only option for helping their family get out of poverty.

Much of the time, people view girls as a burden rather than a blessing, because they will have to pay a dowry when she gets married.

However, parents usually see putting money into their sons' education as an investment, because of the cultural expectation that the son will help take care of them in their old age.

Sexual Harassment

There is a high incidence of sexual assault cases on adolescent girls that go unreported each year. This makes adolescent girls very vulnerable to physical and sexual violence.

Parents of adolescent girls are very fearful to send their daughters to school because of the chance of them being sexually harassed either on their way to and from school or at school itself.

There is also more male than female teachers, which also adds to the problem because sexual assault and harassment can also come from male teachers. Usually, once girls reach puberty, their parents force them to drop out, to avoid this.

"Adolescent girls need a safe and supportive environment, free of gender-based violence, if they are to successfully transition to secondary school (Modi, 2017)."

Menstruation Issues

Many girls in rural areas are forced to observe social customs around menstruation. This means that they have to miss a week of school and stay home during their menstrual period. Also, girls are expected to separate themselves from their families during their menstrual period because it is considered an "impure" time of the month.

There is also a lack of information and education about menstruation and menstruation hygiene for girls in rural areas.

Unfortunately, this leads to many health problems for girls later on in life.

Girls who are living in poverty tend to use old and unhygienic cloth strips because they cannot afford to buy feminine hygiene products, this makes them much more vulnerable to infection.

Girls in rural areas, also do not always have access to private or clean bathrooms which makes hygiene during this time also a much bigger struggle.

Poor Quality Education

While enrollment in primary grades is up, the quality of public education that students are receiving in the school is not very great.

According to India's Annual Status of Education Report 2017, only 42.5 percent of students in grade 3 can read a grade 1 text.

The main problems are that they do not have adequate infrastructure for education or enough resources.

The schools are far away from the rural village homes, there is a lacking of female teachers, a low student-teacher ratio, high teacher absenteeism, and overcrowded classrooms.

These are other obstacles that can keep girls from staying in school in rural India.

Also, teachers in the schools tended to give preference to the boys over the girls.

"Schools in rural areas lack even the most basic infrastructure of desks and benches, playgrounds, and sanitary facilities such as separate toilets for girls (Modi, 2017)."

Ashta No Kai’s Interventions to Educate Adolescent Girls

The paper we used for the information for this page, was written to share the experiences of Ashta No Kai (ANK), which is a grassroots non-profit that was founded in 10 villages in Shirur County, Maharashtra, India. Their mission is to "promote the empowerment and education of women and girls in rural areas (Modi, 2017)."

The interventions that they put in place are: Bicycle Bank, Karate Program, Life Skills Education, and a Scholarship Program.

If you would like to learn more about ANK's interventions and see the data they took on how they helped, please visit the paper we have linked below.

How does this relate to our blog?

In this blog, one of the beauty products company that we featured is Abhati. Helping girls in rural India to get eduaction is part of Abhati's mission. By each product you buy from Abhati, you help send a girl to school.

Abhati has other positive impacts on the world, if you are interested, read the post on Abhati: Abhati - "Shine" under companies.

Reference

Modi, A., & Brookings Institution, C. for U. E. (2017). Giving Girls Wings to Fly: Tools to Empower Adolescent Girls in Rural Communities in India. Echidna Global Scholars Program, Working Paper. In Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution. Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution.