India’s female literacy rate has risen from 9 percent during Independence to about 65 percent in 2011. 2011 Census tells the tale of child marriage being rampant with about 30% of women being married when they were not even 18 years. Economic Survey of India 2020 reveals that from 33.1% in 2011-12 the female labour force participation went down to 25.3% in 2017-28. There is still a gap between the literacy rates of men and women and a growing one at the secondary level. What does this indicate about girls in India who are trying to get an education and realize their dreams?
Cultural devaluation of education for girls, gender roles, gender inequality, social & cultural norms keep girls away from a fulfilling educational experience. When one hand we have more formally educated girls and women into the system, we have lesser of them in public roles and gainful employment. For them, first getting to school is a challenge and then pursuing their aspirations continues to be a challenge. What will help her in her ever-changing life situations?
A gamut of life-outcomes for adolescent girls enhance and improve with life skills education. It is her own agency and empowerment that can assist her to start to drive change for herself. A kind of education or experience that is traditionally denied to girls for the ecosystem around her do not expect her to take control and take charge of her own life trajectory and to make informed choices. When girls learn and exercise these skills in myriad life situations, they become better equipped to handle the challenges of everyday life and to set their goals. They feel more able to negotiate key life decisions and staying in school or completing their education is one such decision.
Life skills education impacts adolescent girls’ progress and larger life outcomes. An independent research of Room to Read’s life skills program corroborates the same and provides evidence to better understand the power of life skills educational processes and practice. Researchers from American University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dartmouth College led a rigorous study to see whether life skills such as perseverance and problem-solving can be cultivated and how these skills, paired with mentorship, impact girls’ lives. Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the study included a survey of 2,400 female students and their parents in Rajasthan, India – half of whom participated in the organization’s life skills-focused Girls’ Education Program, and half who hadn’t. The research found that girls who participated in the life skills education program demonstrated a measurable increase in grade progression, as well as problem-solving, leadership, decision-making, relationship-building and expressing agency over their lives. Program participants also exhibited a 25% lower dropout rate.
In summary, it is important for nations to empower girls to help them discover their own strength, advocate for themselves, and create a new and different path from the one that might be forced upon them. Life skills pertaining to self-awareness, self-efficacy and social awareness are at the heart of the matter. Self-awareness is a wholesome knowledge of oneself, one’s strength, areas of development, aspects of identity and helps to build a vision for oneself. One who understands oneself well, also understands others and life situations around. The bucket of self-awareness includes self-confidence, expressing & managing emotions and empathy. Self-control, critical thinking, decision making and perseverance contribute to crystallization and enhancement of self-efficacy. Belief in oneself and a skillset to generate that belief is critical in today’s ever-changing times. The bucket of social awareness includes communication, creative problem solving, and relationship building. These set of skills enable a person to understand their various social positions where one can be together with others in a constructive manner. Social awareness also enables a person to map out her social assets – an aspect critical for a girl as she takes on various struggles and challenges in her pursuit to be.
The focus must be on girls’ on combining school education with empowerment strengthening – and life skills education is the key. There must also be a conscious effort to collaborate with government officials at the local, regional and national levels to create enablers for girls in their ecosystem as well as to strengthen their self-efficacy. We need to invest in an educational journey that empowers the girls and builds their agency. This must be designed for facilitating long-term, systemic change. That means sustaining programs for years, if not decades, and scaling them to a country’s need.
Room to Read's Girls’ Education Program helps girls stay in school longer, progress towards completion of secondary school, and acquire the skills and agency they need to make informed choices about their lives and realize their potential. The program also works closely with families and the community to create an enabling environment for girls’ education. Targeted material support provisions are also used to strategically promote caregivers and parents to invest in their girls’ education.
Author
Nini believes that pursuing an educational endeavour can be the most empowering process for girls in her country, in her culture. A sociologist by training, she has been in the development sector for the last 17 years. Her work on gender and education brings together deep fieldwork, content creation, curriculum development, training leaders, trainers, and development of gender transformative program designs. Having worked with the government, national and international groups her experience brings together grassroots understanding and technical expertise.
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