The Child Right and You (CRY) released a study of their survey in four states of Haryana, Bihar, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh on International Women’s Day regarding various enablers and disablers that affect access to and continuation of girls educations. It also explored the role and incentive schemes for boosting girl child education in India.
- The girl child of these states are dependent on someone to escort them to school resulting in frequent absenteeism.
- Frequent illness is another big deterrent
- A number of girls of these states stay back due to household chores
- Marriage of girls is the main factor that affects girls’ education.
- elopement/love affairs followed by caring for siblings, predetermined gender roles and physical insecurity of girls.
- Infrastructural issues like poor roads, distance to school and unavailability and/or cost of transport to school
- Menstruating time is another cause to keep girls away from school as despite separate toilets for girls, not all have running water and hand wash facilities
- Lack of awareness and knowledge of government incentives and monetary benefits for educating the girl child
However, self motivation and family inspiration, government incentives, monetary benefits has succeeded to a certain extent in getting girls to schools.