Sir

India has one of the fastest growing populations in the world, with an estimated 190 million adolescents. Girls below 19 years of age comprise one quarter of India’s rapidly growing population and their education plays a vital role in building up the society and nation at large. As there is a famous saying “if you educate a man you educate only him but if you educate a woman you educate the whole family.” The number of school going children in India is quite less and the plight of girl students is even worse.

When child gets admission in an educational institute, it is expected that he or she will leave the institution after completing that particular course. It is also expected that she will pass the examination every year and there will be no stagnation in their education. But in reality some children leave their institution without completing their education. This is called drop out or wastage. The common reasons of dropout of girls in rural and urban areas are:- poverty, child labour in order to get money, absence of separate schools for boys and girls, household works, lack of  female teachers, lack of sanitation and toilet facilities, child marriage, distance of schools and most important unfavorable attitude of parents towards education.

It is universally accepted that schooling has innumerable benefits for the child but the irony is that even after 69 years of independence, a vast majority of children, especially girls are deprived of all these benefits.

When I interacted with a girl of government school, Patna she said that most of the days teachers are absent and even if they are present they are not at all interested in teaching. This is also a major reason due to which students are not able to get access to basic education but now higher pay perks for teachers in Bihar has helped to some extent.

We cannot neglect the fact that in past five years the dropout  percentage has considerably decreased in both the urban and rural areas as now because of awareness and also government schools are trying their best to give toilet facilities to the students.

Government is also keeping the record of the things going on in school and are employing educated teachers. Some of the government banks like State Bank of India donates useful items to the schools or institutions which need them for giving better facilities. The items include water purifier, computers and also books. As we know that to make anything good time is required so yes I can imagine more than 90%  literacy not only in Bihar but in all the states in coming 10 years.

Yours Truly

Ruchika Kumari

Communicative English with media studies – II

  letters