How Budget 2022 missed the bus on girl child education

Representational image (Source: Reuters)

Ashish Mukherjee

As India is focusing on bringing children back to classrooms with schools gradually opening across the country, the Union Budget 2022-23 was looked up to with great hopes that it would fill crucial gaps in the education milieu.

The 20 percent increase in the budget for the key government school education programme, Samagra Shiksha is a welcome move. An additional 11.86 percent has been carved out for the Ministry of Education as compared to the budget estimate in the previous year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a major boost to online education through a digital university, and an expansion of the “one class-one channel” model to improve delivery and bolster supplementary education in regional languages.

These measures are commendable, but what are we missing?

As our economy makes a slow recovery from the crushing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must look to prioritise girls’ education as part of that effort. Adolescent girls — comprising 11 percent of India, form the invisible group that has borne the worst of the pandemic-induced school shutdowns, with over 10 million at the risk of being left out of schooling entirely, and their futures changed irrevocably. We are grappling with a huge number of adolescent girls who have disappeared from the education system, pushed into domesticity, and child marriages, never to return to school again.

This will have grave consequences. Providing girls a safe and secure access to quality education is the single-most effective empowering tool, one that is directly linked to inclusive economic growth, and productivity. The returns on such an investment are immense: ensuring girls finish school strengthens India’s social, cultural, and financial fabric, in addition to boosting gender equality and promoting quality paid work, which are critical to the Sustainable Development Goals we aspire to achieve.

Picture this: in 2030, if all girls complete their school education, India’s gross domestic product (GDP) will increase by 10 percent on average. We will see an 18 percent rise in per capita GDP for each additional year of school completed, with the potential to add $110 billion to the GDP over their lifetimes. Research shows when adolescent girls finish secondary school, there is a 64 percent and 59 percent drop in child marriage and early pregnancy respectively.

Moreover, it has a multi-generational impact on India’s overall development — because girls who finish secondary school, and, therefore, are able to participate more meaningfully in the formal labour market, are, in turn, able to provide better healthcare and education for their children. It’s a virtuous cycle.

India has adopted several strategies in the last decade that address these concerns, including the National Youth Policy, and the SABLA programme. Girls’ 100 percent enrolment in schools and addressing other gender gaps are central to the ‘Gender Inclusion Fund’ under the New Education Policy (2020). However, the pandemic-induced shutdowns have undone many gains in terms of enrolment and retention of girls in schools. It is critical that we activate focused interventions to mitigate the damage caused.

In states such as Rajasthan, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, over half the girls are married before the age of 18, and a majority drop out of schools. Sadly, the Budget has phased out the National Scheme for Incentive to Girls. While pre-matric scholarship allocations for Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, and Minorities have increased in Budget 2022, the allocation for Scheduled Castes has reduced significantly from Rs 725 crore to Rs 500 crore. The share of the Budget for Children (BfC) has also reduced from 2.46 percent to 2.35 percent of the total Union Budget.

Under the current circumstances, what are the actionable steps we can take to incentivise the return of girls who remain on the periphery to schools? The biggest barrier at the moment is the lack of financial resources, as millions of families have slipped further into poverty during the pandemic, compelling many to marry off their daughters to reduce their financial burden.

A simple measure to ensure girls finish secondary school is to reduce the economic burden on parents through adequate fund allocation, and effective implementation of pre-matric scholarships schemes. Given the current magnified inequalities and vulnerability associated with girls’ continuing education, policy makers must stamp out school development fees, and provide examination fee waivers.

There is global evidence proving that cash transfers have long-term gains in improving access to education, and changing the fortunes of disadvantaged families.

It is prudent we put this tool to greater use to create a country-wide ecosystem of inclusivity that helps girls escape the double whammy of gender discrimination and poverty that is keeping them out of school, and dimming their chances at entering the formal workforce.

Let’s bring girls back to schools, to playgrounds, and a step closer to a wholesome education and career prospects.

Ashish Mukherjee is Vice-President, Social and Economic Empowerment, IPE Global Limited. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.