Question

What were the different reasons people had for not sending girls to school?

Answer 1

Hint: There were many reasons why people did not want to send girls to schools. It had to do with domestic work, it also had to do with girls having to go through public places to get to school.

Complete answer: Many reasons were present as to why people did not want to send girls to school. It was not just one factor by many factors that contributed to this problem.People were scared that schools would separate girls from their homes and this would in turn lead to girls not doing the domestic duties assigned to them or schools would prevent them from doing domestic duties. People were not ready to send girls to school as this would mean that girls would have to travel through public places to get to their schools and people held the belief that if girls travelled through public places then it would have a corrupting influence on them. In a way they wanted girls to stay away from public spaces.
Vijay Kumar Ballani is a history teacher in the state of Rajasthan. He and his colleagues are known for going door to door and pleading with the local villagers to send their children to school. When we look at the India context we find that women are more successful in clearing the 10 board exams compared to men however 84 percent of them are not allowed to complete their degree.
In 2002 Vacha Women’s Resource Centre conducted a research and it was found that many parents enrolled their boy child in a private school whereas their girl child in a public school. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign is a step taken by the government of India to improve the education of girls’ in the country. In many parts of the country it was also believed that if a girl is educated then the chances of her becoming a widow are more or that it was a certainty that she would become a widow in the future.

Note: Jyotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule are believed to be pioneers in the subject of women’s education. They both started what is believed to be India’s first school for girls around 171 years ago.