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Hope for the girl child

When 14-year-old Akhari first stepped into the school, she did not know there was a world beyond cooking, cleaning and washing clothes.

Now, after 10-months at the small non-formal education centre in her sleepy little village, she is sure that she is the luckiest in her family.

"I can read and write," she says, adding, "unlike my six married sisters.''

Akhari is among the 40-odd students attending a non-formal class in the Muslim-dominated Ahalwati village. Today, this village in the Kaman block of Rajasthan's Bharatpur district, boasts of sending all children in the age group of 5 and 14 years to school. The situation was vastly different two years ago when education for girls was taboo.

The families of the village, all belonging to the Meo community, follow the advice of mullahs and imams, and were totally against sending girl children to school. But the Lok Jumbish Parishad, a Jaipur-based non-governmental organisation, managed to convince the imams to do so after much persuasion.

Ahalwati was one of the villages which the NGO selected to implement its novel project for spreading primary education in Rajasthan.

''If the success of the project in the village is any indication, there is no reason why we can't achieve the target of universal education (in the state) in the distant future,'' says Lok Jumbish chairman Anil Bordia, a former Union education secretary.

Sanjeeta, another girl student, is among those reaping the maximum advantage from the project -- she joined the school at the age of five. ''I want to be a teacher,'' she says.

Ahlawati's womenfolk, meanwhile, have become enthusiastic supporters of education for girls.

''We want them educated so that they can can stand up against exploitation,'' they say.

'Earlier our children used to go to madarsas. But with the introduction of Urdu we are sending them to school,'' says Muhurvi, whose three children are studying in the school.

How different is the teaching in madarsas from that in schools?

''There is a world of difference between the two. Madarsas impart religious education. But formal education in schools prepare the children to face the harsh realities of the world,'' Muhurvi says.

Rural areas of Bharatpur district, like most parts of Rajasthan, are characterised by educational backwardness. The Kaman block, bordering Gurgaon on the north and Mathura on the north-east, has a population of about 130,000. Of this, 70 per cent are Meos.

As per the 1991 census, the literacy rate is about 29 per cent, female literacy being about nine per cent. The literacy rate in the Meo community is as low as 19 per cent. Of the total 204 villages in the block, there is no literate person in 22 villages. As for literate females, there is none in 47 villages!

The reasons for educational deprivation in the area are several: poor standard of living, degraded school buildings, insufficiency of teaching aids and learning material, insufficient number of teachers and lack of communication between teachers and the community.

The Lok Jumbish project is being implemented in selected blocks. Each block has been divided into compact clusters of 25 to 30 villages. A block steering group of five persons have been appointed. Another four-member team has been appointed at the cluster level. Of this, at least three are women.

In the beginning, volunteers of the NGO had initiated a series of meetings with imams to bridge the gap between the school and the community.

Younger children up to the age of nine were admitted to class one, while girls above nine were given non-formal education.

According to a project officer, a total of 44 non-formal centres are functioning in the block, with 58 instructors. The number of persons benefiting from these centres is 1,179 -- 966 girls and 213 boys.

The NGO also plans to introduce another scheme -- the 'minimum level of learning' -- in 105 schools shortly.

In co-operation with the UNICEF, the Lok Jumbish had established Viharn, another NGO, in 1995 for implementing the Pre-School Child Development project. They had opened 25 child care centres and introduced quite a few programmes to train mothers to encourage home-based child care.

UNI

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