Gender Inequality: Challenges of Educating the Girl Child

Abstract

Education today has become an arena of conflict where struggles of the marginalised are taking place. These conflicts relate to aspects of caste, class and, more significantly, gender; girls constitute a larger proportion of the disadvantaged child population in India. The article attempts to grasp the intersecting process of exclusion of the several girl children from the school system. The strategies adopted by the state to address these issues have tended to be isolated and fragmented. The mere presence of girls in schools is an inadequate indicator of the difficulty they face owing to gender disparities within schools or the gendered environment beyond. A holistic, multi-sectoral development needs to address their specific vulnerabilities.