While being in a conversation with a teacher of a Government Girls school, she recalls having witnessed a tangible surge in the girls’ admission in her institution, situated in West Bengal.
Even in the Covid times, she has revealed a well-managed school curriculum with great satisfaction so as not to ‘hamper’ the education – the teachers have regularly resumed teaching via an online platform. However, due to the lack of smartphones, she accepts some of her students could not attend her classes.
Primarily, for the Class 12 students, the West Bengal government has allotted each with Rs 10,000 to get hold of smartphones. Mock tests of Class 12 have been conducted twice, once online and then when the classes resumed in school (by maintaining all the Covid protocols) in offline mode.
Tangible Incentives To Promote Girl’s Education
Concerning the other facilities which have attracted girls to take admissions in her school, all students (from Class 1 to Class 12) are given free books, free school uniforms, and free midday meals. However, in Covid times, the students, via their guardians, are given rice, lentils, grams, potatoes, and Iron tablets. They are also entitled to soaps, sanitizers, and masks.
The Central Government digital platforms like e-Vidya, VidyaDaan 2.0, Diksha Portal, National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT), and Bharat Padhe are trying to democratize education.
Particularly, the West Bengal Government (India Report Digital Education) has made use of TV channels like “10 am to 11 am and 3 pm to 4 pm on ABP Ananda and 10 am to 11 am to Zee 24 Ghanta” to help the students of Class 10 to Class 12 and is also trying to reach out to the students via WhatsApp groups.
In addition to these, Balika Samriddhi Yojana has provided annual scholarships (Rs 300 – Rs 1000) to the girls for attending the schools. Shikhashree has further helped the girl students gain book and maintenance grants to reduce dropouts.
Mind You; Not All Incentives Are Visible!
While in conversation with the same teacher, it was revealed that the supply of sanitary napkins had been absolutely nil during the pandemic. Hygiene and healthcare still stand out to be the most important incentive yet the ‘least’ provided. The plight of the marginalized students have touched the bottom as “West Bengal has reduced to take the benefits of scholarships granted to minority students.”
On the broader canvas, the baits laid out to attract more girls within the school campus are pretty substantial and, to a great extent, have been realized. However, the state of education in the Covid times has not always been this hunky-dory (as compared to this archived conversation of March 2021).
At the beginning of the pandemic, via the survey conducted by West Bengal Right to Education (RTE Forum and Campaign against Child Labour CACL), there was a steep escalation in the girl child labourers to 113% with 42 incidents of child marriages.
While focussing on the educational facilities (manifested by the schemes), one ought to understand; all will come with its own set of complexities. Neither the situation of the girls nor their educational facilities can be ‘critiqued’ in mere isolation.
Conclusively, while being aware of the incentives, it is important to know the reason behind providing these incentives as well. While being happy with the statistics of the incentives, one might set out to have a utopic connotation. Likewise, to set foot into the arena of online classes, simply having a phone is not enough. The constant data pack recharges and the ample space in the mobile to store the online materials received cannot be accommodated within Rs 10,000.
Even I happen to have a phone which costs around Rs 7,000. However, I can carry forward with this phone simply because I am ‘privileged’ enough to have a laptop to save all my online documents, class materials, and even assignments. Moreover, say now, the girls are being brought to the schools by laying out such incentives for the time being. It is crucial to question that how many girls will actually pursue higher education?
The pandemic might have undoubtedly brought a hard time for the ‘accurate’ dispensing of the incentives. Apart from this, the pandemic has also ‘underlined’ the loopholes in the sets of incentives.
The author is a Kaksha Correspondent as a part of writers’ training program under Kaksha Crisis.