Key Facts
- The literacy rate for lower caste women in rural Rajasthan is less than 5%– the lowest in India. Rajasthan is also the state with the largest disparity between girls’ and boys’ education.
- Disadvantaged young women are at great risk of being forced into early marriages condemning them to poverty, social isolation and powerlessness.
- When girls are educated, birth and violence against women decreases; and incomes and literacy rates increase.
Educate Girls’ response:
Educate Girls (EG) works to improve the quality of girls’ education in rural Rajasthan to increase social and economic prospects for poor families and communities. Educate Girls ensures that more girls can be educated on a larger scale and at a lower cost by mobilising communities to improve the quality of girls’ education and the infrastructure of government schools.
Educate Girls spends three years in every district in Rajasthan to promote and support girls’ education through:
- Enrolment/Retention via community mobilisation
- Learning/Training via child-focussed learning techniques
- Girl’s Leadership: Forming Girls’ Councils (Bal Sabhas), which equip girls with life skills that build their confidence and promote leadership.
Educate Girls is currently implementing its model in 2,342 government schools in the Pali District and plans to start work in 50% of schools in the Jalore District. Education for girls is weakest in these two districts of Rajasthan.
Our Support
The British Asian Trust is supporting Educate Girls to scale up and increase its outreach across Rajasthan enabling more girls to be enrolled and educated. With help from The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Trust, we are supporting Girls’ Councils (Bal Sabhas) promoting leadership skills.
