Udaan brings a paradigm shift in girls’ education in Rajasthan

Jaipur: A campaign to send girls to school by the administration and local residents has borne fruit a year after it was launched in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district, with female enrollment skyrocketing to over 90 per cent, a senior official said.

 With the drive, the administration also ended up collecting about Rs 10 crore for the improvement of education infrastructure in schools. The special drive, named Udaan, brought a paradigm shift in girls' education in Chittorgarh, Inderjeet Singh, District Collector, Chittorgarh, told PTI.

 "The campaign, launched in January last year, was aimed at breaking people's cynicism that a girl was a liability," he said. Inspired by the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, Udaan aimed at ensuring all girls in the district were enrolled in schools by June 2018.

 For this, a special survey of 3 lakh household was conducted, in which nearly 25,724 students of 5-14 years of age, including 13,816 girls, were found to have dropped out of schools, Singh said. "By December 2017, as many as 23,242 students out of the total 25,724 had been enrolled in schools, which is 90.35 per cent,” he said.

 "For ensuring retention, we organised Shiksha Chaupal at the Panchayat level where we interacted with parents and motivated them to keep their daughters in schools," Singh said.

 He said that people have so far donated approximately Rs 10 crore -- in cash and kind -- to improve the educational infrastructure in the district. "Under the campaign, we have announced that the title of Udta Vidhyalaya will be given to a school which has high scores on the four parameters of physical infrastructure, enrolment, retention and quality education," Singh said.

 He claimed the child sex ratio had also improved in the district as a result of the drive. Chittorgarh had not figured in the list of districts of Rajasthan which were selected under the first phase of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, launched by the Union government in 2015. 

Singh said support for the campaign came from all sections of society. "It includes retired teachers who are taking out time to take classes in schools and a group of young boys who collected Rs 2.5 lakh and got constructed a toilet for girls in a school in just two months last year," he said. 

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign has now been expanded to all the districts of the country and the announcement for this was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a function in Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu district on the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8.

 He said that people have so far donated approximately Rs 10 crore -- in cash and kind -- to improve in education infrastructure in the district. "Under the campaign, we have announced to give the title of Udta Vidhyalaya to school which has high scores on four parameters of physical infrastructure, enrollment, retention and quality education " Singh said. 

He claimed the child sex ratio has also improved in the district as a result of the drive. Interestingly, Chittorgarh had not figure in the list of districts of Rajasthan which were selected under the first phase of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, launched by the Union government in 2015.

 Singh said support for the campaign came from all sections of society. "It includes retired teachers who are taking out time to take classes in schools and a group of young boys who collected Rs 2.5 lakh and got constructed a toilet for girls in a school in just two months last year," he said. 

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign has now been expanded to all the districts of the country and the announcement for this was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a function in Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu district on the occasion of the International Women's Day on March 8.