Where are we today with respect to girls' education

• Systematically robbed of their confidence to think and learn without fear of failure,they are subsequently paralysed by their own low self-image.As a result of these factors, women are caught in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle; theirinability to educate themselves perpetuates the stereotype that education is irrelevant towomen. (Mahila Samakhya: Education for Women’s Equality, Government of India, 1991)Most policy-makers, development practitioners and educationists acknowledge that thewide range of social, cultural and economic factors that inhibit women’s access toknowledge, information, mobility and justice cannot be tackled though piecemealinterventions. The complex inter-linkages between the social and the personal, onereinforcing the other, cannot be tackled without the active participation of women in aself-driven and self-motivated strategy for a basic change in mind-set of the individualand people in our society. They also recognise that the essence of empowerment involvesa movement from a passive state where women accept their predicament and relate to theworld around as recipients of welfare and charity to one where they become active agentsin their own transformation.Education, as it is delivered and practised today, is a far cry from this. Adult educatorspointed this out way back in the nineteen sixties and the early nineteen seventies.Unfortunately, the adult education programmes in India have been reduced to “adultliteracy drive”. They focus on transfer of skills: literacy, numeracy and other “practical”tools (knowledge of schemes, nutrition practices, contraception and so on). Women’seducation has become instrumental and reduced to a mechanism to bring down fertility,improve child rearing practices, enhance nutritional status and so on. Techniques,technology and pedagogic tools have taken precedence over the content of education. Thenet result is that literacy drives rarely expand people’s choices, nor do they respect therich diversity of experience, practices and knowledge. They do not enable people tounderstand and analyse systemic causes for persistent poverty, deprivation andpowerlessness. Education, as we see today, does not encourage critical thinking nor doesit empower people with relevant survival skills.Organising women and giving them space to reflect on their problems and predicament,providing sensitive training and resource inputs, enabling them to identify their needs anddevise interventions that enable them to cope with and transform their situation andrespecting their ability to determine their own strategy – all these invariably lead todemands for literacy and education. When women seek out life skills and education as anintegral part of their strategy to negotiate the world from a position of strength, educationbecomes a natural ally. On the other hand, if literacy and schooling is offered to themwithout addressing the barriers that have prevented access for centuries, it becomes amechanical exercise that has little meaning in the day-to-day struggle for survival.Innovations that have made a differenceThere is no dearth of interesting innovations in India – in both the government as well asthe non-government sector. The table below captures the range of innovations that areIndia Case Study Page 26 20 June 2003