Context: On the eve of International Women’s Day, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has launched ‘Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav’ scheme to bring back the out-of-school girls back to the education system.
About Kanya Shikhsa Pravesh Utsav

• Launched by: Ministry of Women and Child Development(MoWCD) in partnership with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF.
• Purpose: It is a campaign that aims to a) bring back out of school adolescent girls in India to the formal education and/or skilling system and b) enhance enrolment and retention of girls between 11-14 years of age in school.
• Umbrella Initiative: The campaign has been rolled out under the umbrella of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao(BBBP) Initiative.

Key Features of the campaign

• Under the campaign, over 400 districts across all states will be funded under Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme for outreach and awareness generation at the grassroots level to sensitize communities and families to enroll adolescents girls in schools. This funding will be over and above the funding from Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan.
• Moreover, Anganwadi workers(AWWs) will also be further incentivised for counseling and referring out of school adolescent girls. 

Significance of the campaign

• The campaign intends to build on the existing schemes and programmes like Schemes for Adolescent Girls (SAG), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) and National Education Policy (NEP) to work on a comprehensive system for out of school girls.

Issues in women education:

• Gap in upper primary and secondary schooling: While female enrolment has increased rapidly since the 1990s, there is still a substantial gap in upper primary and secondary schooling.
• High drop-out rates: Increased female enrolment is, compromised by persistently high rates of drop-out and poor attendance of girls relative to boys. Girls also constitute a large proportion of out-of-school children.
• Inter-state variations: There are also considerable inter-state variations in gender parity. While the greatest surges in female enrolment have been achieved in the most educationally disadvantaged states such as Bihar and Rajasthan, these states still have a long way to go to catch up with the better performing states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh.
• Son preference: Some studies suggest that girls are over-represented in the government schools, demonstrating continuing son preference where boys (highlighted in economic survey 2018) are educated in private and better schools which are of (perceived) better quality.

Various government efforts towards women education in India

• Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme: It aims to generate awareness and also improve the efficiency of welfare services for the girl child. The initial aim of the campaign was to address the declining child sex ratio but it also include propagating education, survival and protection of the girl child.
• Digital Gender Atlas: Ministry of Human Resource Development has prepared a digital gender atlas for advancing girls’ education in India.
• National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE): The objective of the scheme is to establish an enabling environment to reduce the drop outs and to promote the enrolment of girl children in secondary schools.
• Udaan: CBSE has launched ‘Udaan’ to provide free online resources to girl students of Class XI and Class XII for preparation. The special focus of the scheme is to address the low enrolment ratio of girl students in prestigious institutions.
• STEM education: To increase the participation of women in STEM education, supernumerary seats have been created in the IITs and NITs.
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: In order to ensure greater participation of girls in elementary education, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has targeted interventions for girls which include opening of schools, appointment of additional women teachers, separate toilets for girls, teachers’ sensitisation programmes etc. In addition, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas has been opened in Educationally Backward Blocks (EBBs).
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA): It envisages enhancing the quality of education by providing a secondary school within a reasonable distance of every habitation, improving quality of education imparted at secondary level, removal of gender, socio-economic and disability barriers.

By: Shubham Tiwari