Let her Fly with the Wings of a Paper
A question that pops into the mind is “what if it is raining?”, then the paper will become fragile and then will break, thus ultimately resulting in her downfall. Yes!! that’s the inevitable reality and the bitter irony is, that the rain is of her tears only, girls cry not because they are weak but because they have to face discrimination in every field of life. They are always deprived of their rights, they have to always face unjust criticism, they are forced to live a life full of rules and regulations made by a male-dominated society. Among all, one of the major dreadful discrimination they face is in the field of education.
Education is not merely about learning the facts, rote memorizing and remembering the text by heart from books, but education is actually that mighty tool that enables the individual to know the reality of our existence, reason and logic behind every phenomenon happening around us, what are the different rights of an individual, what is the difference between right and wrong and how we all are one of a kind, gifted with beautiful skills and abilities. Education not only makes a person asset to society but it makes the individual confident, independent, generous, self-reliant, hard-working, disciplined, and most importantly a kind, sympathetic, and good human being.
Truly, the need of the hour is women empowerment that is to promote the progress and growth of women by providing them equality in all the fields and especially in the world of business. Girl education is a major promoting and must factor that empowers a girl to explore, grow, and change her imaginations and dreams to reality. Today, Women have been playing a vital role in the growth of the Indian economy and have made a big impact and got success in almost every sector. Some of the inspiring leading businesses Role Women are: Vandana Luthra, KiranMazumdar, Priya Paul, Ritu Kumar, Suchi Mukherjee
But, how they are different from others and why not all women are successful. It is because they are confident and they trust their abilities. This confidence and power to grow and succeed they got from their education. Their education becomes their pillar which supported them to stand out from others. But the problem remains the same, still, there are many girls who want to go to School but this remains as only a dream throughout their life.
The situation that is most prevalent in India is, most of the rural families send their daughters to schools only for completing their elementary education or sometimes till secondary education and they stop sending them to schools for further education. In many remote places, if a girl completes her post-graduation, it is considered a huge thing that is very rare to happen and that’s the point we are lagging behind. The thing that is must and should be normal is rare to see in our country and that too not because we are having schools and colleges but only because of the mentalities of people that are still old and that needs to be changed. People need to appreciate women scientists, women professors, women models, actresses, and businesswomen. There are some rural families who want to send their daughters to school but they are unable to do so because of their poverty. At that point country’s government plays its role.
Many laws made for girl education by the government of India such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao. Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is a central government scheme that is beneficial across the country for girlchild Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, Balika Samriddhi Yojana, CBSE Udaan Scheme, National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education. Yes, there are a plethora of laws and programs made by the government of India for girl education but they have just become a phrase for textbooks and not more than that, even when every Indian is given the Right to education and Right to equality there are many girls who are taught how to use a broom instead of pens and pencils. The following graphs show the comparison of the number of girls getting an education in rural and urban areas:
Fig(1.1) and Fig(1.2) clearly shows that there is less number of girls getting an education in rural areas than in urban areas, there can be many reasons behind this like:
· Most of the rural people are governed by old stereotypes that boys should be always given more importance than girls.
· They think that there is no use in educating them, they are expected to look after the house and do household works only in future
· Some rural people believe that women and girls are meant only to fulfill all the demands of men being their slaves and if they will be educated they will ask for their rights which according to them they don’t deserve.
· They think educating a girl is wastage of their money and they are not going to be profited by educating her, as they consider that girls never belong to their parents' family.
But, times are changing and so should we!!! All the people have to accept reality, they have to give all the rights to girls and that too not to show sympathy to them but because they deserve it!!
There is an interesting story of Shakuntala and Dushyant in Hindu mythology where it is shown that Shakuntala was very less educated but still once she wrote a letter to Dushyant in harsh words complaining about her situation. Some people having orthodox thinking consider that even when Shakuntala was very less educated she used such harsh words and crossed her limits and thus it’s important not to educate girls because then they will ask for their rights and this society will no longer remain a male-dominated society.
But is it really right? Don’t educate girls because then they will ask for their rights which are naturally provided to them as provided to males. In the course of evolution, it was observed that both men and women worked together. Yes we, accept some of our ancestors did wrong they took the rights of women. But why be a blind follower when we know what is right we should do right.
There are many people who understood the seriousness of this issue and as responsible people, they started working to uplift the situation of girls by providing them education, there are many NGOs working on this issue, one of which is Shashi dream foundation.
But the question that should be of prime importance to us is, what can we do? 135.26 crore people of our county include each and every individual i.e. including both males and females. Most of us especially the well-educated society very well knows the importance of girl education in women empowerment. In the future one day, these creative, talented, and enthusiastic girls will set an example for our country in front of the world. That’s why it is required that we all come together and work for this cause together as:
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”
-By Ishita, SDF Batch 11, Miranda House, Delhi, India
Click on the following links to find more information regarding our work and career counseling session video.👇
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShashiDream/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shashi_dream_foundation/? hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shashidreamfoundation/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shashi_dream