Those 70,000 girls

The declaration of results of the HSLC examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) is one annual event which the vast majority of the people of the state look forward to with great anxiety. This is because while it involves the highest number of candidates – and thus also the highest number of families as well as educational institutions – for many people especially among the economically weaker sections, clearing the Class X hurdle itself is the biggest achievement in life. The reality however is the Class XII finals are gradually becoming more important, because it is only after clearing the Higher Secondary stage that a student actually takes a "line" as is commonly said. Nevertheless, it is very important for everyone to take a close look at the various signals and patterns that emerge from the HSLC results. One, the list of candidates who have found place in the top ten positions, has for the first time in many years witnessed the equal number of slots occupied by boys and girls; of the 42 candidates whose names figure in the 'top ten' slot, 21 are boys and 21 girls. In recent years it had become almost routine for girls to occupy more positions than boys. The 'routine' thing this time is that students of non-government schools have done much better than those from government institutions. Altogether 39 students out of 42 figuring in the 'top ten' list are from non-government institutions, thus once again bringing to the fore the quality of teaching in the large number of government institutions where teachers get a handsome package from the public exchequer. The government in fact owes an explanation to the tax-payers as well as those parents whose children attend such institutions. A closer look at the statistics related to the results indeed show that the pass percentage among male/boy candidates has been better than that of the female/girl candidates. While the pass percentage of male candidates is 66.93, that of female/girl candidates is 62.91. But then the story does not end there. The reality is that while altogether 1,20,468 candidates have failed to clear the HSLC examination, as many as 70,608 are girls, the remainder 53,175 being boys. Why is the percentage of failure among girl/female candidates so high? The answer is simple: education for girls is still not a serious priority among the masses. There are reports which clearly say that the burden of housework on Indian girls is a spiralling crisis for the country. In its 2015 Report on Gender Inequality in India, the McKinsey Global Institute had found that Indian women perform nearly 10 times the unpaid care work as men. That is close to three times more than the global average. Housework accounts for 85 per cent of the time women across India spend on unpaid care work, the report said, pointing out that much of this is either shared or shouldered by young girls who mostly miss school for this reason. And Assam is no exception. No wonder, figures tabled in Lok Sabha in February this year had revealed that the drop-out rate in schools is the highest among all states in Assam, be it at both primary level or at the secondary level. The drop-out rate in Assam at primary level was 10.1% in 2017-18, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (8.1%), Mizoram (8%), Uttar Pradesh (8%) and Tamil Nadu (5.9%). At secondary level, Assam's drop-out rate was 33.7%, followed by Bihar (32%), Odisha (28.3%), Tripura (27.2%) and Karnataka (24.3%). Broken up between the genders, the drop-out rate among boys in primary schools in Assam was 11.2%, followed by Arunachal Pradesh (10%), Mizoram (8.6%), Uttar Pradesh (7.2%) and Odisha (6%). For girls at primary level, the highest five dropout rates were in Assam (8.9%), Mizoram (7.4%), Uttar Pradesh (7.1%), Arunachal Pradesh (6.1%) and Tamil Nadu (6%). At secondary level on the other hand, the drop-out rates for boys were 32.1% in Assam, followed by Bihar (30.3%), Odisha (28.7%), Tripura (27.1%) and Karnataka (26.4%). Among girls in secondary school, the highest five drop-out rates were in Assam (35.2%), followed by Bihar (33.7%), Odisha (27.8%), Tripura (27.3%) and Madhya Pradesh (24.2%). The Ministry of Human Resource Development has admitted that the reasons for children – and more particularly girls – dropping out from school include poverty or economic reasons, poor health, a child too young to be attending school and a child – a girl – needed for help in domestic work. So, where does Assam go from here?