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| Andhra girls seek Chidambaram ... |
| The 18-year-old gets Rs 50 a day and the money is helping her brother pay his college fees.
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| INDIA
, 15-February-2008
1:23:9 AM |
| Only five out of every 100 girls in Andhra Pradesh continue to study after class 10. Surprisingly, some of the drop out even include students who passed in first division.
Now hundreds of girls from Andhra Pradesh's Warangal district want the finance minister to help them study free of cost even after class 10.
Venkatalakshmi would love to hold a pen in her hands instead of the weeds she plucks out from fields, that's what she has been doing ever since she had to drop out of school.
The 18-year-old gets Rs 50 a day and the money is helping her brother pay his college fees.
''My parents are working very hard to make my brother study graduation. I go with my mother for all kinds of labour work. I love to study and want to be a teacher and help girls like me who want to be educated,'' said Venkatalakshmi, School Dropout.
Daring to dream is a luxury girls like Venkatalakshmi cannot afford. In her native Warangal district, the administration claims there is near 100 per cent enrolment of girls.
But a new survey done by an NGO Tharuni for UNICEF, reveals that out of 100 girls who reach class X, only five go to junior college.
Whereas 60 out of 100 boys in class X continue after that. Seventeen-year-old Saraswati for example, passed class 10 with 74 per cent. But paying college fees for her was not something her family could afford. So she now rolls beedis.
''I love science, I passed in first division. We are three sisters and a brother, and I gave up school to earn for the family. My brother studies in an English medium school,'' said Saraswathi Srija, School Dropout.
Activists say free education in college at least for meritorious girl students could make a lot of difference.
''Fourteen to 18 is the age when most crimes happen like girls are trafficked or married off early or abused. The government can ideally tap this age group by putting them schools by spending more on education,'' said Mamta Raghuveer, Child Rghts Activist.
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