INDIA CALLS FOR GENDER PARITY IN
BASIC EDUCATION
COUNTRY
PAPER PRESENTED AT THE EDINBURGH COMMONWEALTH MEET
India has called
upon the Commonwealth nations to evolve a joint strategy for achieving
gender parity in basic education. Empowerment of women is the
most critical pre-condition for participation of the girls and
women in education in the commonwealth community. In a Country
Paper presented at the Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference
currently in session in Edinburgh, the Minister of Human Resource
Development, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi said that taking this into
consideration, India adopted the National Policy on Empowerment
of Women in 2001 to effectively address gender disparity especially
in education. A host of proactive initiatives have been launched
over the years to close the gap in gender disparity in literacy.
For this, special incentives are being provided to ensure girls
participation in basic education. These have resulted in a considerable
drop in gender disparity in education over the years.
In the last decade
female literacy increased by 14.8 per cent i.e. from 39.3 to 54.16
per cent, higher than the increase in male literacy rate. Gender
equity and women’s empowerment is also visible, as about 60 per
cent of the participants and beneficiaries are women. Fifteen
years of free schooling i.e. upto the graduation level is provided
to the girls and the early childhood care and education programme
is being further strengthened to enable them to attend school.
The Mahila Samakhaya Programme of India (awareness creation) was
awarded the Noma Literacy prize of UNESCO for 2001.
The Paper points
out that the future challenges include, most importantly - reaching
out to children in difficult circumstances. These children do
not participate in schooling due to a variety of reasons, both
economic and social. A key strategy for achieving the goal of
"Education for All", is to provide an alternative system
of education to those children belonging to deprived and disadvantaged
sections of the society.
Speaking about strengthening
of education of minorities, the Country Paper notes that education
forms an important component to ensure equality and social justice
to the minorities as guaranteed in the Constitution. Under the
Area Intensive Programme for Educationally Backward Minorities,
the central government provides 100 per cent financial assistance
for their education. The programme currently covers over 325 community
development blocks spread across 15 states and two union territories.
In the Tenth Plan, two schemes of Area Intensive Programmes for
these minorities are envisaged and modernisation of Madarasas
will be merged with it for focussed attention.
The flagship programme
"Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan" launched in 2000, aims at completion
of five years of primary education to all children by 2007; completion
of eight years of education to all children by 2010; provision
of elementary education of satisfactory quality by 2010; bridging
the gender and social gaps at the primary stage by 2007 and elementary
stage by 2010 and universal retention by 2010. To achieve these
objectives, highest priority has been given in the Tenth Plan
for the development of Education, the Paper adds.
