Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

In the Name of the Community 179
important reasons were: being required to do household work (30.8 per
cent), schools too far away (16.1 per cent) and the cost of education
(10.5 per cent). Only 0.7 per cent boys considered education unnecessary,
compared to 5.6 per cent girls. A higher percentage of girls cited sibling
care as the main reason for not joining schools. Marriage was cited to be
the main reason for discontinuing education in the case of 13 per cent of
out-of-school girls.
In Arunachal Pradesh, the educational infrastructure continues to
be inadequate, but its expansion over the past three decades or so has been
impressive. As a result, girls today have better access to schooling than
they had in the past. Between 1981 and 1991, the enrolment ratio among
girls aged 6–11 went up from 24.1 to 33.4 per cent, while among those
aged 11–14 it improved from 28.5 to 53.7 per cent (Planning Commission
2002). However, girls continue to have comparatively less access to higher
education. 9 Improvements in enrolment do not guarantee access to
adequate levels of education. The drop-out rates in relatively underdeveloped
regions are very high, more so in the case of girls. The dropout
rate in Classes I–V for girls in Arunachal Pradesh has come down
substantially from 72.2 per cent in 1981–82 to 45.10 per cent in 1998–99.
This is still higher than the national average, but unlike in many other
states, the drop-out rate for girls has been less than that for boys. Similarly,
for girls the drop-out rate in Classes I–VIII has reduced from 83.60 per
cent in 1981–82 to 65.86 per cent in 1998–99. However, in Classes I–X,
girls in the state have a higher drop-out rate than boys. 10 This seems to
indicate that the pressure on girls to drop out of school is especially high
after they reach middle school.
There is some evidence to show that unlike in many other parts of
India, the intra-family distribution of food and nutrition in Arunachal
Pradesh does not show any systematic gender bias. According to the India
Nutrition Profile (1998), the average consumption of foodstuffs in
Arunachal was nearly the same among boys and girls, except in the age
group 4–6 years, where the average consumption was lower among girls
for all foods except pulses. Among adults, the average consumption was
similar among males and females. While the average intake of cereals,
green leafy vegetables, roots and tubers, and other vegetables were above
the suggested levels of a balanced diet for all age groups, the intake of
pulses, milk and its products, fat and oils, as well as sugar were below the