On the face of it, enrolment figures of boys and girls in schools run by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) are heartening. According to the Guidebook of BBMP Educational Establishments — 2018, 64.15% of students enrolled in BBMP schools are girls while 35.85% are boys. A superficial reading of these figures suggests that girls are outstripping boys with regard to enrolment in government schools. However, the reason for this gap is reason for serious concern. S G Raveendra, special commissioner, education, BBMP, has attributed this gap to gender discrimination. It appears that parents prefer to send their sons to private schools and their daughters to BBMP schools. Underlying this decision is their willingness to spend more on their son’s education than on that of their daughters. People are more invested in the future of their male children. They are willing to spend on it and also for a longer period. Thus, sons are being sent to private schools, generally considered better than government schools. Subsequently, they send sons to private institutions providing pre-university education and then for their graduation. Statistics in the Guidebook indicate that the gap between enrolment of girls and boys in BBMP educational institutions widens in the higher classes. Of the students in BBMP-run pre-university institutions, almost 81% are girls as against 19% boys. This increases to 91% girls and 9.4% boys in BBMP-run degree colleges.
Thus, sons are not just fed more nutritious food, they also get to study in better schools and colleges and are provided every kind of support by the family. Despite the odds, girls are doing well. In fact, far better than boys. Results of the SSLC and PUC examinations show girls outperforming boys year after year. Yet, their hard work and impressive results don’t seem to matter. Anti-female prejudice runs deep in our society. Females are discriminated against at every stage of life, from the womb to the tomb. The BBMP statistics on enrolment in its schools merely reaffirms this fact.
Clearly, social awareness campaigns have failed to bring about change in the way people view their sons and daughters. The government and social activists need to design campaigns that strike a chord with the public. Using popular actors and sportspersons may be one way of reaching out to the masses. Importantly, the government needs to improve the quality of education it is providing in the BBMP schools. Better teaching and curricula would provide students studying here with better opportunities later in life. This would narrow the gap in quality of education in BBMP schools and private ones, rendering irrelevant parental decisions to send sons to private schools and daughters to government ones.
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