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Ever since the freedom movement in India, the vital role of girls has been so evident and has been the main drive towards providing sustained education for them. Girl education has been at the peak of national development agenda since it has been the greatest hurdle from independence. This was ultimately defined by the low literacy levels of females in the nation. At one point the Gross Enrollment Ratio was at 24.8 percent for primary level and less than 5 percent for the upper level. There were some significant steps that the government had to take to address the main constraints to girl education such as access to organized schooling and culture. It is important to note that the main implementation that the government and education administrators have put in place to improve access to schooling is developing infrastructure. This has resulted in more than tripling of the number of schools both in the primary level and upper primary level. Most of these schools have more so been established in the rural areas meaning that more than ninety percent of the rural population has managed to get access to a school within a kilometer of their habitation. As much as the numbers of schools have gone up significantly, getting the girls to these schools has necessitated provision of other special facilities. Most of the things that have been done have particularly focused on meeting the standards of the community such as setting up separate girls' schools. Sanitation has also been key in bringing girls to these schools and this has shown the government's commitment to sustain them. With bettered access to schools, the rates of enrollment have gradually gone up to almost match up to the uptake of boys at the primary level. The statistics of the upper primary level has not been as excellent as for the primary level but the girl child education deficiency gap has been reducing steadily. There has been a similarly positive improvement in the numbers of disadvantaged girls getting basic education. More to this story has been the reducing drop out rates for girls who have access and have been enrolled to schools. Girl drop outs have declined so much in recent times that they are almost lower than those of boys. This has more so resulted in reduced umber of out of school children and made it easier to formulate interventions for the few outliers. From the above information, it is clearly evident that girl child education in India is showing a positive trend and that the government has been well at the forefront of it. Studies have also shown that with lowering illiteracy levels, maternal mortality rates have been reduced significantly and there has been an improved nutritional status and general earning potential. It is therefore clear that there is still more to be done in order to account for every child's education. Since the girl child has more or less the same capabilities as the boy child, it has to be a guarantee that no programmes will interrupt girls' education.
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girl child education in india, non government organisation, ngo in india,
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