Despite the best efforts of the state government as well as the central government, the dropout rate of girl students from the schools has been steadily increasing. This development has come as a wake-up alarm for the state government of Bihar.
The state government has now decided to set up “Kishori Manch” which is a forum for adolescent girls. The forum will come into being in the month of January 2020 and the task of this forum will be to motivate the girl students from the state’s senior secondary schools to continue with their studies.
This task will be accomplished by the forum through the sharing of success stories of high achieving women in the society. The forum will also offer counselling on vocational and professional courses that are available for the female students after they have passed their class 12th exams. The Kishori Manch will comprise of an educational trainer as well as a psychological trainer to motivate the girls to continue their studies.
As per the latest findings from the education department of the state, the dropout rate for girl students in the senior secondary schools has increased to almost 40% during the last three academic sessions.
There are more than 6000 senior secondary schools in the state and out of them the education department has found that 1,662 senior secondary schools have dropped higher dropout rate for female students studying in the classes 9th to 12th.
This increase in dropout rate is alarming in the wake of the fact that various schemes like bicycle and uniform schemes have been in place for almost more than one decade.
When asked about the rationale behind the Kishori Manch, Mr Sacindra Kumar, who is the Bihar State Project Council State Programme Officer, said, “ The idea is to motivate them. All districts have been allocated funds for the purpose.” Another senior official further added that the trainers in the Kishori Manch would undertake to counsel for girls and encourage them to start their own businesses by taking up various vocational courses.