Revision summary
The state expanded girl-child education through RTE, meals, and schemes. Enrolment gains are the main success. Puberty, honour, and poor quality cut completion. Safety on the road is part of education policy. The role is a push, not a completed equality.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
The Indian state has promoted girl-child education through law, schools, meals, cycles, and cash schemes. Enrolment rose. Completion, safety, and the leap to secondary and college still meet kinship honour. The role is necessary and incomplete.
Body
What the state did
- Right to education, midday meals, and scholarships lowered the immediate cost of sending a daughter.
- Beti-type campaigns and state schemes named the missing girl after DEMARU sex-ratio shocks.
- Reservation and teacher hiring put some women in school as models.
Limits of the role
- Leela Dube’s Seed and Earth still withdraws girls at puberty for kanyadaan futures.
- Poor quality government schools push those who can into private coaching, a class filter.
- Distance, toilets, and public violence make the road to school a gendered risk.
- Child labour and unpaid care compete with attendance.
Assessment
- Yogendra Singh: the state is a heterogenetic moderniser. Households absorb it selectively.
- Outcomes are better at primary than at higher levels, better in some southern states than in the north-west.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD ST[State RTE meals schemes] --> EN[Girl enrolment] SE[Seed Earth puberty] --> DR[Dropout] SF[Safety toilets quality] --> EN DR --> GAP[Incomplete promotion]
Conclusion
The state has been a real promoter of girl-child schooling through entitlements and campaigns. It cannot, by circulars alone, defeat patrilineal marriage maths. Assess the role as a push that works when toilets, teachers, and property rights travel with the textbook.
Quick related
Students also ask
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With increase in education and economic development is Indian society becoming more secular.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q7(c)). View answer →
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Has the state closed the gender gap?
It narrowed primary enrolment gaps in many areas. Higher education and outcomes remain unequal.
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Are cash transfers enough?
They help. Schools that are safe and usable matter more day to day.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2021 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Rising 'ethnocentricism' is leading to conflict in our society. Assess this statement with appropriate reasons
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