Celebrating Class X or Class XII results may seem normal for a student in the Capital. But when a student clears board exams after beating tremendous odds, it becomes something extremely special.
Thirty-two girls from marginalised backgrounds passed their board exams due to the efforts of Pehchan study centre, which convinced these drop-outs to restart their education.
Parental pressure
The girls are all from Jaitpur Extension, a resettlement colony near Okhla, where 90 per cent of the population is poor. In fact, girls who are school drop-outs can be found in nearly every household in the area.
Shabnam Hashmi of Pehchan, a non-government organisation that was registered in 2015, said: “Many of these girls were forced to dropout of school due to poverty or the social conditions they lived in. We also discovered that many Muslim girls in Jaitpur were forced to stop their education due to pressure from parents and were confined to the four walls of the house.”
Pehchan visited these households and convinced the parents to send the girls to the NGO’s coaching centre to restart their education, give the board exams and perhaps study further or get a job.
Farida Khan, the director of Pehchan Coaching Centre, said it was very difficult to convince the fathers to let their girls complete their education as most of them believed that studying till Class VII was enough and that their daughters would get spoilt if they stepped out of the house.
Ms. Khan, who set up the coaching centre, said there is no government school within seven-km radius of Jaitpur. Since the area does not have a very good reputation, she added, parents are reluctant to send their children to a school far away.
“To bring back Muslim adolescent girls, who have dropped out of school, into the educational fold, it is very important to open study centres inside minority areas to restart their education,” Ms. Khan added.
The girls had dropped out for a variety of reasons. While some came from families that could not afford to send them to school, others were forced to do so by their parents.
Mubeena Khatoon, who cleared Class XII examinations this year, had to drop out of school after her father died 10 years ago. She came to Pehchan to learn stitching, but was convinced by the teachers there to finish her studies instead. She cleared her Class X exams and started working at a call centre to support her family. Mubeena used to study for her Class XII exams at Pehchan at night after work.
“Today, I earn Rs.13,000 and contribute to the family income along with my brother, who drives an auto-rickshaw. At first, there was a lot of societal pressure. My brother was told by the many people that he should not make his sister work and that it reflected badly on him. But after I passed my Class XII exams, he was very happy for me. It was a beautiful moment for me when I came home that day. I will always cherish,” she said.
“Become independent”
Rukaiyya, who had to drop out in Class V after her parents got divorced, passed her Class X exams with a first division this year.
“I want to complete my Class XII exams and then enrol in a computer course so that I can get a good job,” she said.
Rukaiyya said getting back to studies after a long gap was tough, but she was able to catch up with a little bit of effort. “I would like to encourage all the girls who have dropped out of school to complete their education and become independent,” she added.
