Gender equity in education: the need to focus on early childhood education
- The latest Annual Status of Education Report shows that while girls and boys from rural India equally aspire to choose Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses, it is boys who take up STEM courses more than girls.
Learning Outcomes Parity
- Analysis of the National Achievement Survey (2017) reveals gender equity in learning outcomes.
- Girls and boys exhibit similar test scores in mathematics and language across elementary and secondary classes.
- However, this analysis overlooks underlying gender discrimination in education.
Worsening Educational Attainment Gap
- Despite girls being more educated than ever, the gender gap in mean years of schooling has widened.
- Over the past two decades, the mean years of schooling for girls tripled from 1.7 years in 1990 to 4.7 in 2018.
- However, the gender gap (difference between male and female attainment) has increased from 2.4 to 3.5 years.
- This contrasts with global trends where many countries have shown equal improvements for both genders.
Widening Gap with Progressive Education Levels
- Gender gap increases with higher education levels due to greater barriers faced by girls, influenced by social norms and stereotypes.
- The dropout rate for boys in Class 1 is marginally higher at 6.88 (6.38 for girls).
- However, this trend radically reverses by Class 8, when almost twice the number of girls are dropping out of the schooling system.
Roots of Discrimination in Early Education
- The Annual Status of Education Report "Early Years" highlights early childhood education (ECE) as the foundation of gender gap roots.
- More boys are enrolled in private institutions, reflecting societal biases in exercising school choice.
- The preferred choice for girls’ enrolment is the free government school.
- Even at the age of four, there exists a five percentage point gender difference in total enrolment.
- Cultures valuing male education lead to higher chances of girls being withdrawn from school.
Call to Focus on Early Childhood Education (ECE)
- There is an urgent need to shift focus to ECE to address gender gap roots and eliminate stereotypes.
- Lack of regulatory framework, inadequate funding, poor quality and no legislation for universal access to early childhood education pose challenges.
- Investing in ECE yields significant returns, making it crucial to establish a strong foundation for right education.
- The Prime Minister's Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao initiative and the Draft National Education Policy could be pivotal in promoting universal early childhood education.