Girls’ education is one of the most important issues in the present time. It has several aspects to it, but the most pressing issue is that of the dropout rate of girls. This is not a recent trend and has been occurring for years. But, the Coronavirus lockdown led to an unexpected rise in the number of school dropouts.
Firstly, we need to understand the concept of dropouts. The dropout rate is defined as “The percentage of students who drop out from a given grade or cycle or level of education in a given school year.”
Girls’ dropout impacts many aspects of our society, including:
- Economy
- Social development
- Politics
- Market
As per a UNESCO report, “Over 111 million of these girls are living in the world’s least developed countries where getting an education is already a struggle. These are contexts of extreme poverty, economic vulnerability and crisis where gender disparities in education are highest.”
No single event can precisely forecast schools’ failures, but risks rise when several factors (like the pandemic) are considered together. I have mentioned some key factors which are responsible for girls’ dropouts. To face these challenges we need to understand the root cause of such ‘glitches’:
- Socioeconomic status
- The responsibility of adults
- Teachers’ behaviour with students
- Monotonous environments of school
It is crucial for policymakers to step up, as this is the time where we need to make, and implement, some effective policies to address this problem. As per my understanding, I have some very effective measures which can help lawmakers deal with the rate of dropouts and to help enhance girls’ overall education.
- Reframing existing programs– Reframing programs, planning, and the curriculum to focus on skills and competencies that inspire better school performance and social behaviours.
- Dropout prevention framework– The top programs must be run to include parents as a critical part of their dropout prevention framework.
- Family engagement programs must be run by the government along with the education process.
- Community Programme- Such programs can be critical performers in a community’s efforts to prevent school dropouts.
- Family strengthening activities can be implemented in schools.
These activities can provide specific training for parents to show how they can assist their child intellectually. Several school-based, classroom-based, and district-based strategies that have been demonstrated to support keeping students in school should be looked at. A healthy relationship with teachers can be encouraged as caring relationships with mentors is key to maintaining positive outcomes. The age of marriage must be increased to 21 -years so parents have no option to force an early marriage upon their daughters.
To conclude, frequent evaluations must be conducted to measure the level of achievements of any such measures implemented.