Concern over girls dropping out from schools in Barmer
BARMER: Laxmi Kumar, 16, of Jatiyon Ka Wass village in Barmer district quit school in 2018 after passing Class 7. Her family said she was uninterested in studies. After her, her elder brother, Dileep also dropped out of school.
Their grandmother Bobli Devi is happy that the two children are out of school. “Laxmi helps me in household chores and Dileep has started earning to support the family’s finances,” she said.
Laxmi’s story is that of thousands of other girls in the district. Parmeshwari Devi, 16, of Dhorimanna block was forced to quit school after her school was merged with the nearest school, two km away from her house. “My family didn’t want to send me so far because they feared for my security,” she said.
According to data from the women and child development department, which is running supplementary nutrition programme for the out-of-school adolescent girls, 5,241 girls in Barmer are out of school.
WCD officials consider these girls as dropouts because all of them have been to school at least once. They said they didn’t know one reason for such a large number of girls quitting school.
Vimla Devi, aganwadi worker at Jatiyon Ka Wass said that there are nine adolescent girls under her aganwadi, all are dropouts.
She said that she tried to tell the girls the importance of going back to school but to no avail. Vimla Devi could not provide an answer to why the girls were unwilling to go back to school.
The education department organizes ‘ pravesh utsav’ (admission festival) every year to increase enrolment in schools and to bring the dropouts back in the system. Sati Choudhary, deputy director at WCD in Barmer said that it was a fact that according to the available data with her department, 5,214 adolescent girls of age 11 to 14 are not going to school and are dropout.
“We are providing them supplementary nutrition under a scheme run by Integrated Child Development scheme (ICDS). These girls are registered at our aganwadis and beneficiaries of
VIMLA DEVI, aganwadi worker
our programme,” she said.
When HT asked if the department made any effort to send t hem back t o s c hools, s he answered in the negative.
“It is not our duty. We are responsible for providing them supplement nutrition. We have no resources to do that. This is the duty of the education department,” she said.
One out of five girls in the age group of 15 to 16 drops out from schools in Rajasthan, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018, leading to a sharp decline in girls’ enrolment in the higher education institutions.
The national average of out of the school girls recorded in the survey was 13.5%. Similarly according to according to ASER report 2018 4.1% girls in the age group of 11 to 14 dropped out in India while the figure in Rajasthan is almost doubled as 7.4% in the age group of 11 to 14 have been dropped out in Rajasthan.
Earlier, the programme was being run in the name of ‘Kishori Shakti Yojana’ in selected 508 districts. Under the scheme, WCD ministry was providing nutritional support to the out of school adolescent girls of 11 to 14 years.
From April 2018, the union government had ceased the operation of ‘Kishori Shakti Yojana’ and launched the new programme in entire country.
The key objecti ve of t he scheme is to facilitate, educate and empower adolescent girls so as to enable them to become selfreliant and aware citizens. Under the scheme, department aims to enable the adolescent girls for self-development and empowerment.
Dr Krishna Kant Pathak, secretary at WCD told HT that department i s benefitting approx 50,000 adolescent girls under supplementary nutrition programme and all are dropout. According to Pathak, “It should be the prime focus of the department to bring these dropout girl children back to the mainstream education.”
He, however, said that as these girls belong to the scattered areas due to which it is not possible.
Pathak further said, “Our purpose is to provide them nutrition support and ensure counselling of them.”
He, however, said that it should be the purpose to bring them back mainstream education.
He said that if they go to school they will not only get the nutrition support under mid-day meal programme but it will also ensure their education upgradation.
However, education department refuses to accept the data of WCD department.
Harikishan Aacharya, chief education officer in Barmer said that according to the data available with his department, there were 3,719 girls who dropped out, of which they have brought 2,622 girls back to education.
When HT shared the data of WCD department with him, he said that he needs to check it and he will talk to WCD department and get the data for verification.
When HT contacted Himanshu Gupta, director, school education he said that he is not aware about the situation and before commenting on the gaps about t he data of dropouts between two departments, he need to check the facts.
Sanjay Joshi, a social activist said that huge number of dropout girls is quite possible in Barmer.
He said that it is remote area and people have still orthodox mentality. According to Joshi, parents in remote rural areas do no prefer to send their adolescent girls to school. Besides, this child marriage is another reason.
School merger is also big reason in this regard, said Joshi, adding that previous government had merged many schools due to which parents who were earlier sending their daughters to the school as it was nearby avoided it considering the distance.
It is not our duty. We are responsible for providing them supplement nutrition. We have no resources to do that. This is the duty of the education department