Faltering high-potential initiative

In a society where one of two women is illiterate and where millions of girl children never enroll in school, the country’ 1,226 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas offer SC, ST and minority girl children a chance to assert their right to education. Puja Awasthi reports from Lucknow “After class IV, my father refused to send me to school. For three years I was sitting at home, tending cattle and collecting firewood. I didn’t want to marry early so when I learnt about this school I insisted on being sent and refused to eat or drink until my family relented.” – Laxmi (14), Mathura “My husband believed educating girls was a waste of time. But I was determined that my daughter Archana would go to school. The day he agreed to send her to school, I distributed sweets in the village.” – Sulochana devi (45), Pratapgarh “Married at 12 years of age, by 15 I had two children. I didn’t think my life would ever change but the school has offered me that opportunity. Now I know that with education everything is possible.” – Raisa Bano (16), Jaunpur Laxmi, Archana and Raisa don’t know each other and might never meet. Yet these three girl children have broken the shackles of tradition and are determined to improve their lot through education. In a country where female literacy is 53.67 percent (cf. male literacy of 75.26 percent) and where millions of girl children never attend school, they represent a new generation of girls born into traditionally marginalised groups insistent upon asserting their right to education. Their intent is being facilitated by 1,226 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) schools which have mushroomed across the country during the past two years. KGBVs are high-potential upper primary schools with boarding facilities for adolescent girls from the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes (SCs and STs), other backward castes (OBCs) and minority communities (Muslims). Laxmi, Archana and Raisa are residential students of disparate KGBVs located in three backward districts of Uttar Pradesh – India’s most populous (180 million) and arguably most educationally backward state. Promoted under the KGBV scheme launched in 2004 by the government of India as part of its flagship education for all project aka Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas are essentially residential upper primary schools for adolescent girls with minimal schooling. Established in educationally backward districts in the country, they fall within the jurisdiction of the department of elementary education and literacy (of the Union HRD ministry) and its various schemes viz. SSA, National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) and Mahila Samakhya (MS). Currently the 1,226 KGBVs operational in 24 states of the Indian Union provide residential schooling to 80,880 girl children aged between eight and 19 years. Moreover it’s a measure of the seriousness of intent – although belated – of the Central government in the matter of making up lost ground in the education of girl children that an additional 1,430 KGBVs have been sanctioned for the year 2007-08. “The objective of KGBVs is to provide continuing education to girl children from disadvantaged groups of…