Context

UNESCO has released a new global education report titled as “Leave no child behind: Global Report on boys’ disengagement from education”. This report focused on the gender parity and uneven distribution of accessibility of education for different sections of the society.

Background

• COVID-19 Pandemic has widened the gap of gender inequality and accessibility of education among different gender.
• Pandemic has also induced the school dropout rates for all the genders in the every country irrespective of the GDP status of the country.

Analysis

Key-findings of the report:

• Boys are more likely than girls to repeat primary grades in 130 out of 142 countries.
• Around 132 million boys of primary and secondary school age are out of school
• It also stated that boys are more likely than girls to experience physical bullying and are often targeted because of their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression (SOGIE)
• In 57 countries boys are falling behind the girls at primary as well as secondary level.

Factors responsible for boy’s disengagement from schools

• Harsh discipline
• Corporal punishment
• Gendered norms
• Poverty and the need to work
• Streaming of classes and gender segregation contributes to boys’ low motivation, underachievement and disengagement from education.
• Language barrier
• Mobility
• Discrimination
• Forced migration

Other major findings and suggestions:

• At the global level no country has achieved gender parity at tertiary level.
• Advance equal access to education can rule the gender disparity in the accessibility of education
• New norms and education policy to secure the Right To Education for boys’
• Education rights should be secured for all the gender irrespective of their sexual orientation. Segregation of gender cannot bipolar it should be multipolar.

Problems with India’s education system

• Poor access to high-quality education
• Fear of exams instead of Real learning
• Suboptimal Pupil-to-Teacher ratio
• Lack of infrastructure

Important Constitutional provisions Education was sole responsibility of state till 1976 but constitutional amendment made it concurrent subject. Fundamental Rights Article 21A: Right to Education Article 28: Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions. Article 29: Equality of opportunity in educational institutions. Article 30: Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.  Directive Principles:  Article 41: Right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases Article 45: Provision for free and compulsory education for children and Provision for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years Article 46: It provides for special care to the promotion of education and economic interests of the scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and the weaker sections of society.

Recent government schemes for Education

• New India Literacy Programme: The Government approved a new scheme “New India Literacy Programme” for the period FYs 2022-2027 to cover all the aspects of Adult Education to align with National Education Policy 2020.
  • The Scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Education in convergence with various Ministries and Departments to implement the scheme.
  • It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• National Education Policy: The NEP 2020 is is the first education policy of the 21st century and replaces the thirty-four year old National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986. 
• United Nation’s E9 initiative: In April 2021, India joined theUnited Nation’s E9 initiative, whose purpose is to create an initiative on digital learning and skills, targeting marginalised children and youth, especially girls.

Other major initiatives SWAYAM: The ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds' (SWAYAM) is an integrated platform for offering online courses and covering school (9th to 12th) to Post Graduate Level.  SWAYAM Prabha: SWAYAM Prabha is an initiative to provide 32 High Quality Educational Channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the length and breadth of the country on 24X7 basis. National Digital Library (NDL): The National Digital Library of India (NDL) is a project to develop a framework of virtual repository of learning resources with a single-window search facility. Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE): FOSSEE is a project promoting the use of open source software in educational institutions. E-Yantra: e-Yantra is a project for enabling effective education across engineering colleges in India on embedded systems and Robotics. NEAT – an initiative by AICTE based on the PPP model to enhance the employability skill among students, in collaboration with Education Technology Companies and National Digital Library (NDL), a repository of learning resources with single window facility.

Conclusion

Covid pandemic has introduced a new dimension of gender disparity in the society which barred the fruit of education in a gender neutral manner.  Anew revised gender neutral policy is utmost important to reduce the gap of the gender parity. Gender neutral should not focus on the two genders rather it should be neutral irrespective of sexual orientation of the students