|
Education
Gender discrimination in school system
|
Removal of gender bias in the curriculum is also something that has to be consciously done in different ways all the time, and not by looking only at textbooks and correcting the stereotyping or having an additional paper on women's issues in the humanities subjects.
|
HOW DO we make out whether there is gender discrimination in our school system? Let us look at the opportunities available for girls and boys in regard to access to education from the earliest stages. The Constitution guarantees equality of opportunity before the law for both the sexes and therefore, the de jure position is that girls and boys have equal access to education. But what is the de facto position?
Today the total number of girl students enroled in the upper primary education are much better because of many policy interventions on behalf of the girl child, such as the Report of the National Committee on Women's Education (1958-9), the Kothari Commission Report (1964-5) and above all the National Policy (1968) and the National Policy on Education (1986), which stressed the need for empowering women, that is making them capable of guiding their own destiny and becoming self-reliant through exposure to education and survival skills, including income generation.
Whatever be the cause, there is a gap in enrolment. The social barriers standing in the way of girls attending schools — poverty, compulsions of older girls in families having to look after the home and siblings, the conception or misconception that girls do not need education and/or that what is taught in schools is irrelevant to them, parents seeing limited (economic) benefits in educating daughters, lack of women teachers and separate schools for girls, supportive facilities (like adequate and clean toilets in schools) and transport facilities to travel to school and back, all these inhibit parents from getting their girls enrolled. Girls have to stay at home once they attain puberty and must be protected till they are marreid. And they become part of another family, leaving the parental home. Add to this, the commonly held belief that marriage is the be-all and end-all for girls, leading to early marriage and pregnancy. So naturally the son is sent to the school, not the daughter.
The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (1974) found that some teenage girls were supporting entire families of sick and unemployed parents and siblings on their sole earnings. `It should be noted', the Report said, `that girls constitute a higher proportion of the unpaid family workers throughout the country, and that is a major reason for their exclusion from schools.' `Fear of alienation of girls from their environment is another inhibiting factor for not sending girls to school,' said the Report.
These reasons also result in high dropout rates at (upper) primary stage. So there is a gap in retention of girls in schools, even if they enrol at the primary stage. In many places in the rural areas where there are primary schools, there is no scope for studying further as there are no schools having upper primary and secondary sections and girls are not sent to far away schools because of this. Fear of the girl child's vulnerability is often the only reason given.
The other factor to be taken into account is that are there enough opportunities for girls to achieve their full potential in the way boys do in the education system. Often there are unrecognised, unintended and unknown biases in the minds of the teachers, administrators and peers in schools, which inhibit girls. For girls in rural areas and from deprived castes, communities and tribes and for handicapped girls, all the above problems are accentuated much more than in the case of boys because of dual or multiple disadvantage. It is well-known that two thirds or more of our women are illiterate and less than half of them are educated upto the primary level. We have to also note that all-India figures hide a lot of variations as between States.
The gender discrimination in schools is an extension of what we think in the family, in society and in the community in which we live. Unless there is camaraderie, diginity and partnertship among the members of and within the family, it is diffucult to expect the school to create it artificially in the school environment, and to pursue it without reference to what is happening in society. There has to be a democratic environment in the home for the child to be democratic in his/her lifestyle. Any programme of gender discrimination elimination in educational institutions must take into confidence, the parents and guardians and undoubtedly the teachers (both men and women), for whom there must be continuous programmes orienting them to equality in thought and deed. Persons in the community and the media have to be involved, for the programme touches the lives of children outside of schools. It cannot succeed if pursued in the school alone.
The DPEP(District Primary Education Programme) is a special programme of the Government of India run in 42 districts in seven States, to increase enrolment of girls at the primary level and helping in sustaining it. It has, as one of its thrusts, the elimination of gender discrimination in the schools in its jurisdiction. Infact, there is a substantial gender focus in it. The decentralised implementation it envisages, provides for specific interventions for girls. Programme goals include concentrated effort on reduction of gender disparities in education, as reflected in lower enrolment, retention and achievement of girls, particularly those from socially and economically disadvantaged groups. Rightly does it emphasise the role of the community in helping the school to combat sex stereotyping. It encourages local communities, particularly women to play an active role in every aspect of the programme. This includes intensive capacity building for groups in the community to focus on issues relating to the education of girls and boys. Involvement of the community is also required in monitoring enrolment, retention and levels of achievement and classroom behaviour and transaction, with emphasis on girls. The equal treatment promoted in the schools ought to be able to transform the thinking within families.
In many States there is mid-day meal scheme, which is intended to attract children of the poorer sections to enrol in schools. And only women are recruited as primary school teachers. Most States has attempted attracting girls to enrol in schools, by making education free for all girls right up to the professional stage. This however has the catch that even those girls coming from families who can afford to pay, get free education.
We here recall the instance of a Centre run in the Jama Masjid area by the Central Social Welfare Board many years ago, for girl dropouts who, through a `condensed course', could appear for the school final exam leading to a matriculation degree. For such centres, there were two criteria — the students had to be girls from poor families. The girls who attended this centre, could afford to pay, so they would not normally be entitled to come to the centre. But they pleaded that the centre should not be closed down. The reason that they gave is something very important, they said that their culture and community would not allow them to attend regular schools, once they had attained puberty. They wanted to study and if they were given a chance to finish school studies here, it would be a boon not only to them but also to their girl children, who might have the chance to go to school and be educated! The centre was allowed to continue on their request.
What has not happened in many States is that schools have not come up in abundance or in convenient locations in rural communities. If they have, then some of them do not pay attention to conveniences that the girl students require and the timings most convenient for rural girls who have to mind the household and other kids in the family.
Again, the Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India had recommended that schools should have a day care centre attached to them — the advantages are very clear — girl children can attend schools while their younger sisters and brothers are looked after close by in the day care centre of the school and secondly, all children, girls and boys in the school, can be given training in child care in the centre — so that the stereo typing that children must be cared for only by the females in the family, would go. No one seems to have taken this seriously till date.
Within the school itself, there is need to identify the overt and covert discrimination, arising out of ignorance and deeply ingrained ways of thinking, on the part of teachers and educational administrators. This manifests itself in language, gesture, posture and action as seen in the way girls and boys are seated in the classroom. We neither need to exceed the limits of decency nor need we show prudery — again it is for teachers and the administrators in schools to ensure that girls and boys are comfortable in each other's company. Quite often more chances are given to boys than to girls (by a kind of reflex action) to answer questions or to take on responsibility. Girls keep away from sports and physical activity and nothing is done to see that they are talked out of this preference by providing some transport or other facilities for getting home safe and encouraging them o take part in all the games and fitness programmes of the school. Infact, it should be advocated that self-defence should be compulsorily taught from an early stage for all children, particularly girls, in order to to build confidence in themselves.
For many girls from poor families, the biggest problem is that of self-image, which is hardly thought of as a problem by their parents, who may also not have a good self-image (and anyway, the view may be — how can girls feel so for they are born only to bear children and look after them). Even in developed countries, there are problems amongst teenagers entering the adolescent stage, as is but natural all the world over, for at this stage of growing up, when suddenly they have to restrict themselves, girls consider being girls as `unlucky'. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) did an extensive national survey in 1990 on gender and self-esteem.
The results of the survey `confirmed... that for a girl, the passage into adolescence is not just marked by menarche or a few new curves. It is marked by a loss of confidence in herself and her abilities, especially in math and science. It is marked by a scathingly critical attitude toward her body, and a blossoming sense of inadequacy.'
If it is like this in an advanced country with plenty of opportunities for girls and boys, we can imagine the situation in our country, where female infanticide in still practised in certain parts.
Removal of gender bias in the curriculum is also something that has to be consciously done in different ways all the time, and not by looking only at textbooks and correcting the stereotyping or having an additional paper on women's issues in the humanities subjects.
There is the oft-repeated criticism that many girls are not encouraged to get into science, maths, vocational and non-conventional subjects and technical streams. At the school stage itself several interventions are necessary for this.
These would include `enrichment' activities, such as a special hands-on programme with toys and tools in the pre-school stage, visits to museums and fairs and science centres, Lego construction and also experiments in physics with water, air and heat. Exploratory confidence building activities as well as promotion of the competitive spirit through individual and team projects will also help. There is an organisation formed in 1981, in the U.K. called GASAT (Gender and Science and Technology).
Its aim is to identify the barriers to female participation in science, engineering and technology and to examine ways of how this might be overcome. It also provides an international forum for discussing research findings and until 1997, there were seven conferences. Can we have something like this in India?
In the State of North Carolina in the U.S., the work on sex discriminatory practices and evolving strategies for meeting them done by Amanda Smith points to the need to do the following: assigning responsibility to a specific staff member, setting up a mechanism by which grievances can be channelled, understanding how sex stereotyping works, and planning strategies for promoting change, in service training for men and women teachers, student discussion groups and forums, and making them take up studies in the community to find out sex biases.
The DPEP schools could well study this approach and plan their as suitable to conditions here. In addition, all students should be encouraged to take part in life planning — both girls and boys, planning as individuals and as members of a family.
They should explore the shared responsibilities that they will find in work, home, leisure and child rearing. They must also be taughtto consider job or career as an economic opportunity and for self-fulfilment, and not as a calamity, taken up only if the marriage fails or if the girl is widowed.
The Government of India's Country Report for the Beijing Conference in 1995 says, "The overall picture of girls' and women's education is one of limited opportunity, numerous obstacles and questionable quality and relevance. Available evidence suggests that an explicit policy focus on female education is amply justified on the basis of equality, economic productivity and social benefits."
At a recent conference in Trivandrum in December 2000, a new agenda for women's education was talked about. It was felt that there are not many women at top levels of educational policy and administration, even though `teaching' is considered a `female' profession and this is a great drawback as women's perceptions and perspectives are needed for formulating the agenda based on the experience of women's education in India.
You cannot think of education in isolation of what is to be done for raising the level of women's progress. The theme of the Beijing conference was "Look at things through women's eyes". Let us add the word "also" at the end of it.
Lastly, let women not remain among the `unreached', for today we have this very powerful technological option of going to them through distance education which is still not fully explored and utilised for women's education.
PADMA RAMACHANDRAN
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Education
|
