Rural school education in India

Children in rural areas continue to be deprived of quality education owing to factors like lack of competent and committed teachers, lack of textbooks or teaching-learning materials, and so on. In view of such concerns, the recently constituted Rural Education Cell, department of educational surveys and data processing, NCERT, organised a national seminar on 'school education in rural India' at its Delhi headquarters. The seminar provided a platform to policy analysts, administrators, researchers and practitioners to analyse the current scenario in rural education, identify problems and come up with recommendations to improve the situation.

Talking about the philosophy and success of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBVs) — a scheme for girls from rural and disadvantaged groups from educationally backward blocks (EBBs) — Gouri Srivastava, a professor with Department of Women's Studies, NCERT, says, 'The scheme is aimed at realising the constitutional commitment of providing free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6-14 years. The programme also aims to bridge gender and social gaps in education, which is an important objective of SSA.' Currently, the scheme is operational in over 3,000 EBBs in 24 states, where rural female literacy is below the national average and the gender gap in literacy is more than the national average. At present, there are 2,578 KGBVs, of which 2,383 are operational and the total number of girls enrolled is 1,76,713, according to Srivastava. Similarly, the Mahila Samakhya Programme (MSP), working in the field of women empowerment through education, aims to promote 'skill-development' and 'entrepreurial skills' to make women self-reliant. Rashmi Sinha, programme director, MSP, says, 'We are not into imparting skills like sewing or tailoring. Instead, we impart skills like plumbing, repairing and so on to break gender stereotypes and empower girls. So, when flooring has to be done in classrooms or taps are not working, our students are in a position to handle the situation.'