Abstract
The importance of female education is gaining popularity among individuals, societies, and nations. They are getting full support from their families and society members as well. Government has also initiated many schemes to encourage female education, but still girls face many obstacles in their attainment of school education. The present study aims to bring to the fore the problems faced by girls while pursuing school education. A survey was conducted in which data were collected from 20 students and 10 parents with the help of interview schedules, and a qualitative study was undertaken. The results show that the main challenges faced by girls relate to adverse financial condition of their families, anomalies in school infrastructure, and lack of awareness of various government schemes. Moreover, online learning due to COVID-19 has added to these troubles. These results offer useful policy implications and can go a long way in removing the constraints in the way of female education.
TopIntroduction
Education is the transfer of information from one person to the other though spoken words, gestures, audio or visual medium. According to EU Commission (2016), education refers to any act or experience that has a formative effect on an individual's mind, character, or physical ability. In its technical sense, education is the formal process by which society, through schools, colleges, universities and other institutions, deliberately transmits its cultural heritage and its accumulated knowledge, values and skills to the next generation (UNESCO). It is vital for the overall well being of the people as it makes one knowledgeable, independent and capable of taking care of oneself. Not only at the individual level, but it also plays a dominant role in laying down the foundation of a society and in determining economic development of an economy. Education increases stock of skills and productive knowledge embodied in people, and educated people create new ideas. There is wide acceptance in the literature that education contributes considerably to economic growth and development of nations (DiCorrado et al., 2015; Pegkas, 2014; and Hanushek, 2013). But, many individuals are denied access to education across the globe on grounds of region, religion, gender, caste, etc. but the bigotry on the basis of one’s sex is the most prevalent one. Female education is all the more important as it not only adds to economic development, but also brings about equality in the society and improves quality of life of masses. It leads to better health and education levels of their children, and also lower mortality rates (Kumar & Sangeeta, 2013). Women with higher levels of educational attainment almost universally have fewer children than women with lower levels of education (Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Education Proves Key, 2008). In addition, female education promotes economic growth (Salatin & Shaaeri, 2015; Self & Grabowski, 2004; and Benavot, 1989) and it leads to their empowerment (Sundaram et al., 2014; Yadav et al., 2011; and Al Riyami et al., 2004). Research conducted in a variety of countries and regions has established that educating girls is one of the most cost-effective ways of spurring development. Further, studies have shown that giving women more access to education, markets, new technology, and greater control over household resources, mostly translates into greater well-being for the household. Indeed, when women are educated and empowered, the benefits are enormous. Researchers in various studies concluded that gender inequality in education greatly hampers economic growth of nations (Ali 2015; Chaudhry, 2007; and Klasen, 2002). Importance of education in general and female education in particular cannot be highlighted more for developing countries, where dearth of skilled human resource is still a major obstacle in the path of accelerated growth of the economy. Besides, equal access to education is one of the basic human rights which everyone should get but, gender discrimination in education is a global phenomenon.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Education: The world ‘education’ comes from the Latin world e-ducere, meaning “to lead out” (Harsha, 2017 AU63: The in-text citation "Harsha, 2017" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). According to EU Commission (2016) AU64: The in-text citation "EU Commission (2016)" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. , education refers to any act or experience that has a formative effect on an individual's mind, character, or physical ability. In its technical sense, education is the formal process by which society, through schools, colleges, universities and other institutions, deliberately transmits its cultural heritage and its accumulated knowledge, values and skills to the next generation (UNESCO).
Gender Discrimination: Gender can be understood as a framework encompassing the expected behaviour from men and women as per socially prescribed guidelines and in this framework, women have been assigned lower status. This inequality in status of females vis-a-vis males, is termed as gender discrimination, and generates quite harmful psychological, societal and economical effects ( Pokharel, 2008 ).
Literacy: A person aged seven and above who can both read and write with understanding in any language, is treated as literate. “Literacy means a person who can read and write a simple message in any language with understanding is considered literate” (Census of India, 2011 AU65: The in-text citation "Census of India, 2011" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
School Enrolment: Total number of students registered and/or attending classes at a school in different grade levels ( data.gov.in AU66: The URL data.gov.in has been redirected to https://data.gov.in. Please verify the URL. ). Enrolment indicators, however, are based on annual school surveys, but do not necessarily reflect actual attendance or dropout rates during the year (the World Bank).
Gross Enrolment Ratio: As per the World Bank, Gross enrolment ratio is the ratio of total enrolment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Gross enrolment ratios indicate the capacity of each level of the education system, but a high ratio may reflect a substantial number of overage children enrolled in each grade because of repetition or late entry rather than a successful education system. Gross enrolment ratio, for instance, in case of primary school is calculated by dividing the number of students enrolled in primary education regardless of age by the population of the age group which officially corresponds to primary education and multiplying by 100.
Illiteracy Rate: Percentage of persons who cannot read and write with understanding in any language. It can either be calculated as dividing the number of illiterate persons by the total number of persons and then multiplying the result by 100 or by subtracting the literacy rate from 100.
Sex Ratio: Sex ratio depicts number of females per thousand males. A lower sex-ratio depicts lesser number of females per 1000 males and therefore, is indicative of the higher gender discrimination and vice-versa.
According to the World Bank: literacy rate is an outcome indicator to evaluate educational attainment. It can be also used as a proxy instrument to see the effectiveness of education system; a high literacy rate suggests the capacity of an education system to provide a large population with opportunities to acquire literacy skills.
Gender: The word ‘gender’ is generally looked at from different perspectives and is therefore used in more than one sense. Biologically oriented theories attribute gender differences to the different biological and genetic roles played by males and females while sociological theories focus on the socio-structural determinants of gender ( Hameed & Shukri, 2014 ).
Literacy Rate: Literacy rate describes percentage of people (age 7 years and above) who can read and write with understanding in any language.