How These Girls From Haryana's Devipur District Struggled To Get Access To Education?

Years of patriarchy and lack of transportation facilities have obstructed the girls from getting their part of their education. In a small village of Devipur in the Karnal district of Haryana, no girl has ever made it to a college despite qualifying class 12 examination. A group of girls chose to challenge this situation so that no girl in the future faces the same issue.

Major Roadblock!

The girls formulated a letter and sent it to the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CMJ), Jasbir Kaur. Upon going through the request, the CMJ decided to take immediate action, and the bus services began. In the letter written to the magistrate, a girl wrote, "If we are not allowed to study, how can we even fulfil our dreams?" The Quint reported.

A girl from the village mentioned that the people in this village believe no matter how hard we study, we need to come back home and marry. If a parent decides to send their girl outside for study and if she gets associated with someone, people in this village look at her in an undesirable way, she added. Another girl said that there is no single family in our community that we can show our parents to convince them to let us go to the college. For 18-year-old Rakhi, bus service in the village means a step towards her dream.

A senior member of the Breakthrough Haryana wing NGO, Mukesh played a crucial part in making the parents understand girls' right to education. "Change doesn't happen overnight. We work with adolescents, parents, the community, and relevant stakeholders. Hardly anyone who completed class 12 gets the opportunity to go to college. Through several gender training sessions, the girls realised the right to education. " said Mukesh.

Challenges For Girls' Education India

The incident is not restricted to just Haryana. Many girls still fight for their right to education, especially in tier-2, 3 cities. The factors that challenge their access to education can be parental attitude, lack of security, superstations related to girls, economic conditions of parents, or even societal pressure. According to the 2011 Census report, the literacy rate in India stands at 74.00 per cent, and the literacy rate among women is 65.46 per cent. For women's empowerment, the first step should be providing education access.

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