SFI for incentive to bring back dropouts to schools

The Students’ Federation of India has demanded an incentive package to bring girl students who had dropped out during COVID-19 pandemic back to schools.

The federation is organising an all-India Girls Convention in Rajasthan from December 17 to 19 to stress the demand for the incentive package for encouraging girls’ education. Talking to reporters here on Monday, its all-India joint secretary Dipsita Dhar said surveys had showed that 60% of school dropouts were girls from marginalised communities, minorities and Dalits.

“The girls say they had to drop out to support the families as their parents had lost their jobs,” she said. To bring back every girl student who had lost one year of schooling to school, the government should come out with an incentive package, she said.

Stating that sexual harassment and gang rapes were on the rise in the country due to the regressive mindset that women do not have the right to decision-making, Ms. Dhar said that every university should have a Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment.

She said such a committee was required not only to punish wrongdoers, but also to make the men conscious about such bodies and act as a deterrent. “Girls do not know where to lodge a complaint about sexual harassment when the perpetrator is someone high in heirarchy, like a teaching faculty," Ms. Dhar said.

The New Education Policy could be against providing access to education as it recommends for closure of neighbourhood schools. “Girls are going to drop out of schools if they have to travel long distances, because of increased travel expense and increased threat," she said.

SFI State secretary Mariappan was present.