STATISTICS STARTLING
The startling revelation by UNICEF India that dropout rate of the girls from schools in India during the COVID times is distressing and the government should take extraordinary steps to bring back the lot which has slipped from the schools during the crisis time. It is said that “if we educate a man, we educate a man only, but if we educate a woman, we educate the whole family”. Education plays a major role in the social and economic growth of a nation. A nation can be educated in the real sense of the term, when its entire population is educated. Mostly people think that men’s contribution in society is more than women which is not true and therefore it is necessary that all those children who have been affected due to corona should be brought back to schools with not a single child remaining away as the figures released are unnerving because the number of students who have been hit by this ruthless virus in the country are over 247 million. In a survey conducted by UNICEF, it was found that at least 38 per cent of participants knew of a girl who had dropped out of school. While 33 per cent youth participants said that the girls who dropped out were engaged in domestic work, 25 per cent reported that the dropouts had got married, which is not a good sign. Although, students who have left schools during the pandemic need to come back but there are many other factors which can act as bottleneck in the process and therefore government should chalk out a comprehensive plan to reverse the trend so that no child especially girl remains disconnected from the schools as girls’ education is more significant as far as social change is concerned. It is good that UNICEF is supporting the Government of India in back-to-school campaigns, awareness and outreach initiatives and learning recovery programmes at schools and in the communities but as everybody in country knows that pandemic has snatched away livelihoods rendering people jobless, which might be one of the reasons behind children leaving schools and going for earning livelihood for the disturbed families. There might be other reasons also and the government should consider each and every aspect before envisaging the return of children to schools as this is quite significant for making the next generation capable of steering the nation to the next level of progress.