Where are we today with respect to girls' education

Political and other factorsIt is evident that while all governments and political parties reiterate the importance ofbasic education and literacy, this does not come high on their priority list. We arenowhere close to achieving the goal of increasing public expenditure on education to 6%of GNP. It is strongly felt that elementary education in India has suffered, apart fromother factors, because of insufficient allocation of financial resources, though it must bestressed that finances are not the only constraint in meeting national goals.Several commission reports as also the vast range of innovative experiments in differentparts of the country have focused on the question of what it costs to provide basiceducation? According to Tilak, the additional requirement for the ten year period starting1998 is only 0.56 per cent of the ten year cumulative GDP. If the government sticks to itspolicy of allocating 6 per cent of the GDP for education, by the end of the ninth FiveYear Plan the task of additionally allocating Rs. 10,000 crore per year for elementaryeducation does not seem difficult at all (Tilak, 1998).Yet, despite fiscal feasibility neither political parties nor social movements have paidadequate attention to education. If there political interest, it is only to gain politicalmileage or control. Political parties are more concerned about moulding or alteringsyllabi or courses to suit their own perception of nationalism or regional fervour, butseldom do they intervene to alter caste, gender or rural-urban divides. In fact none of theparty manifestos have so far gone ahead in taking up education as a major plank on theiragenda. As Dreze and Sen (1995) point out. “In India both ancient and modern biasesshape our policies, reflecting prejudices of class divisions as well as of traditionalcultures. The difficulty in getting even Left wing parties interested in combatinginequalities in education relates to the general social atmosphere in India, including thenature of the leadership of the different parties which takes some major disparities assimply ‘given’ and not particularly worth battling against.”Dalit and women’s movements, agrarian movements and trade unions have also failed tohighlight the need for basic education as part of their political agenda. The glaringinequalities in education have been largely glossed over by the media. The PROBE team(1999) pointed out that, while there were 8550 articles on foreign investment and 2650 ondefence in one year’s newspapers in India, there were only 990 on education.Some of the initiatives have also been too ‘governmental’ to the extent of excluding anyserious community and civil society participation. Even those which aroused communityinterest in some pockets viz. the Total Literacy Campaign (1988), in the absence of asustained programme of building linkages with primary schools, have lapsed as mere‘programmes’.The silver lining is that some states, notably Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, HimachalPradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have shown will and determination to ensureuniversal access.India Case Study Page 22 20 June 2003