The Women and Child Development Ministry in partnership with the Education Ministry is launching the Kanya Shiksha Pravesh Utsav programme which aims to bring ‘out of school’ girls back to schools for the completion of their education. The government had intended to enforce this since the ‘Right to Education Act’ was promulgated.
Indevar Pandey, the Development Secretary told the press that only four lakh out of school girls were returning to the anganwadis for nutrition, nutrition education and skilling, which to be honest, was quite inadequate.
The development secretary is hopeful about the future and said that they would be able to put these girls back into the formal education system in a short span.
“The focus is all boys and girls getting quality education. We are making constant efforts to ensure no child, especially girls, are deprived of their right to education. We are drawing a programme for out-of-school adolescent girls which will be driven by the Anganwadi system in close partnerships with education officers at district and block levels.” “The need has arisen because the Scheme For Adolescent Girls (SAG), which initially took care of out-of-school girls, was getting less traction.” he stated.
The development secretary pointed out that 11.84 lakh adolescent girls were beneficiaries of the SAG scheme but in 2022, the number drastically dropped to 5.03 lakhs. Under the new scheme ‘Poshan 2’ and ‘Saksham Anganwadi’ the government will only be taking up girls between the 14-18 ages.
“Girls aged 11-14 years will not be coming in the Anganwadi system in new schooling that will also take care only of the northeastern states and all our aspirational districts,” he added.
Photo Credit: Tribune India
