Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Convener: Kathy Mumford, Australia

Tackling Gender Disparity in Primary and Secondary Education
Ranjana Banerjee, Indian Federation of University Women’s Associations

The UN Millennium Goals target the removal of gender disparity in education as an issue and challenge of the present century. The massive international mandate stresses the need for gender free basic elementary education for children up to the age of 14. India prioritizes the need for women’s empowerment and the universalisation of primary education, but ‘education’ remains under the stranglehold of major stratifications like gender, class and caste that create discrimination and disempowerment in our society. Compared to elite aspirations about the efficiency of education as a transforming agent, the ground reality of gender-free education has run into rough weather. The widespread illiteracy of girl children is evident and inevitable when in Classes 1-5, only 2 out of every 4 girls go to school, while in classes 5-8, it is 1 out of 5 and at the secondary stage, 1 out of 8.

Poor enrolment in girls’ education is an effect of poverty and belief in their traditional role in life. The question of reducing the gender gap has achieved some results through Education for All campaigns where it was lowered from 20% in the 2001 census, with a converging trend in the rural-urban literacy rate, but girls’ drop out rate continues to be high. Obstacles hindering women’s education at primary and secondary levels need to be addressed through community participation, legislation and universal education. Effective global and national measures need to be implemented for complete elimination of gender disparity by 2015.

Dr Ranjana Banerjee holds the degrees of BA, BEd, MA, MPhil and PhD. She is Head of the Department of Education at Loreto College, Calcutta, a visiting lecturer at Calcutta University for MA, BEd and MEd classes, a member of the Core Committee of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council and President of Soroptimists International Calcutta. Active in many roles in IFUWA, she is currently its Convener of Membership and Project Co-ordinator in the Calcutta Chapter for the Bina Roy Fund.