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Article On Gender Education

This document summarizes the issue of gender education in India. It outlines that while India has progressive policies supporting women's education, there remains significant gender disparities in educational attainment. Girls from scheduled castes and tribes have about a 30% lower attendance rate than boys at primary levels. The overall literacy rate among women in India according to the 2011 census was 64.64% compared to 80.89% for men. The document recommends incorporating mandatory gender studies in school curriculums and organizing regular awareness sessions to promote gender equality in education. While the government is taking measures like increased education funding, more work is still needed to fully address gender discrimination in Indian education.

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Nirbhay Gupta
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44 views

Article On Gender Education

This document summarizes the issue of gender education in India. It outlines that while India has progressive policies supporting women's education, there remains significant gender disparities in educational attainment. Girls from scheduled castes and tribes have about a 30% lower attendance rate than boys at primary levels. The overall literacy rate among women in India according to the 2011 census was 64.64% compared to 80.89% for men. The document recommends incorporating mandatory gender studies in school curriculums and organizing regular awareness sessions to promote gender equality in education. While the government is taking measures like increased education funding, more work is still needed to fully address gender discrimination in Indian education.

Uploaded by

Nirbhay Gupta
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ARTICLE ON

THE ISSUE OF
GENDER
EDUCATION
IN INDIA

NIRBHAY GUPTA
INTRODUCTION
India is renowned all over the world for its progressive and sensitive educational policy when it
comes to gender education. Specifically in this regard, the National Policy on Education, 1986
puts special emphasis on the importance of women’s education. It states, “Education will be
used as an agent of basic change in the status of women. In order to neutralise accumulated
distortions of the past, there will be a well-conceived edge in favour of women. The National
Educational system will play a positive interventionist role in the empowerment of women.”
Also, India is a signatory to several international treaties that reinforce this commitment, such
as The Dakar Framework for Action, 2000; the United Nations Millennium Development
Goals, 2000; the Programme of Action, 1992; CEDAW, 1993; The Beijing declaration, 1995;
and the World Conference on Education for All.1 Clearly, India is not unaware of the burning
issue of gender sensitisation in the field of education; instead, the country has taken some
certain steps in this direction.

PRESENT SITUATION IN INDIA


India has always been known to be a deeply stratified country, divided into rigid castes and
religions by the common people. But in both the advantaged and disadvantaged sections of
society, gender disparity in educational attainment has been a consistent feature. For Scheduled
Caste and Scheduled Tribe girls, the gender gap is almost 30 per cent at the primary or
elementary level and about 26 per cent at the upper primary or secondary level. Also, in India’s
most depressed regions, the probability of girls getting primary education is about 42 per cent
lower than boys, and it remains so even when other variables such as caste and religion are
controlled.2
Gender disparity in India has for many reasons blocked the main gateway for
development. It acts as a great obstacle for India to achieve 100 per cent literacy levels in each
state, as it already has in the state of Kerala. As per the 2011 Census, the total male literacy rate
in the country was 80.89 per cent, while the literacy rate among women was a mere 64.64 per
cent. India’s overall literacy rate subsequently came out to be 72.99 per cent.

1
National Focus Group on Gender Issues in Education, POSITION PAPER: NATIONAL FOCUS GROUP ON GENDER ISSUES
IN EDUCATION (NCERT 2006, 1st Ed.), Pg. 1
2
Sushrut Desai, Gender Disparity in Primary Education: The Experience in India, UN Chronicle, December 2007.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
To curb this increasing problem by establishing the required infrastructure for the same, the
National Commission for Women (NCW) constituted an Expert Committee under Paragraph 8
of the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, comprising of a panel of experts from
different disciplines and varied expertise. This was done to prepare recommendations as
valuable suggestions for re-orienting/re-strategising the education system in India for a multi-
layered, multi-dimensional transformation in the mindset of the society towards equality and
equity vis-à-vis gender.3 All these recommendations were compiled together in a report
published by NCW, stating all the ideas and suggestions derived during this time, to reduce the
level of gender discrimination in the field of education. Apart from this, the suggestions that I
would like to propose for the existing government to act upon on an urgent basis are given as
follows:
1) The present situation of the gender education in schools and other similar educational
institutions like madrassas require gender studies to be incorporated as a proper
subject or study in the existing curriculum of the students at the primary and
secondary as well as senior secondary levels. This should be made mandatory so that
the basic values required to show the requisite respect to the other sex can be
encouraged and promoted.
2) Regular awareness and counselling sessions need to be organised by schools from
time to time, to make students aware about the benefits of gender education, to inform
them of the current situation of gender education, and to invite their suggestions and
ideas as to how this issue can be raised as well as eliminated in the most efficient and
effective manner. These sessions can be of any duration and of any frequency,
depending upon the available provisions for the same in the existing curriculum.
There can be many other solutions to the above mentioned problem other than the ones
mentioned before, as per the seriousness of the situation in the particular region. Also, the
Government is undertaking serious and strong measures to sensitise more and more people to
come forward and eradicate this gender difference from the education system. This is evident

3
Dr. Charu Walikhanna, Report of Expert Committee on Gender and Education, National Commission for Women, Delhi.
from the fact that the Union Budget of 2014-15 has allocated Rs. 28,635 crore and Rs. 4,966
crore for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
(RMSA) respectively. This has been done with an aim of accelerating the education sector,
which will turn will enhance the employment rate and increase the standard of living of the
people.4 Thus, although the Government is taking measures to deal with this particular topic,
there is still a long way to go when it comes to eliminating the problem of gender
discrimination in education from its very roots. We, as citizens of India, need to mobilise our
own selves and offer our support to the Government of India and its policies regarding the
involvement of gender education in our day-to-day lives.

4
Indiatoday.in, Gender Disparity: A Barrier to Literacy in India, New Delhi, September 9, 2014.

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