Women in Agriculture

Lesson 12 : Programmes for Girl Child -1

Enabling Education for the Girl Child

• The need to encourage all girls to enroll in school and to retain them in the school system is imperative as education not only improves the worth and self esteem of the girl child but also enables her to become an economically productive woman and delays her marriage age.


• Community Vigilance Committees should be formed at village level and the members should ensure that every girl in the village is enrolled and regularly goes to school.


• Mid- day meals should be made compulsory for girls irrespective of the stage of their school education. This has a two-fold effect- on the one hand it encourages the child to remain in school and secondly it provides the girl with a nourishing meal.


• There are a number of logistic constraints, which restrict girls from attending schools, especially after they have crossed the primary stage. These include distance from school and lack of girl friendly facilities in school buildings. Efforts should be made to enroll and retain girls in school by reducing distance of school from home as far as possible. There is need to provide safe transport to girls who have to travel considerable distances. In this context, the proposed Conditional Transfer scheme, can examine the possibility of providing bicycles to girls for traveling to school (as a non cash transfers) to young girls( at elementary and secondary school levels) so that they need not depend on irregular public transport services.


• More residential schools and hostels should be provided for girls (especially adolescents) to facilitate their continuation in education.


• An important reason for girls dropping out of school is the lack of proper toilet and sanitary facilities. High priority is therefore needed to be accorded to providing separate girls’ toilet with proper water and sanitation facilities.


• Bridge schools with quality education package should be provided to girl children, especially street children, child labourers, seasonal migrants, who may have not been in formal education system. These bridge schools should ultimately lead to their integration in the formal system.


• Provision of adequate number of crèches in urban and rural areas also facilitates girl children to attend school without the burden of sibling care. Also, it is important that Day-care center / Crèches for the girl children themselves be made available after school hours for their safety when their parents are at work.


• Pre school education is an very important input not only for 0-6 years old but also for the older children as it serves as the motivating factor for the girl child to enroll in school.