Professional aspirations among rural youth gendered: ASER

A palpable 'gender bias' was found in professional aspirations of the rural youth when a survey was carried out in 641 villages spread across 24 states for the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2017. The report was released on Tuesday.

According to the report, which focused on the age group of 14 to 18 — the first batch to pass out of class VIII after the implementation of the Right to Education Act 2009, while males aspire to join the army or police or pursue engineering, females prefer to go for "traditional" career choices like teaching or nursing.

Women activists cite lack of opportunities and lack of choice for girls in rural areas as the reason behind it. "There is a huge gap in availability of opportunities for girls in urban and rural India. The girls in rural areas are not even allowed to take small decisions of their lives, forget about career choices. They are taught to think about marriage and family from a very young age," said Ranjana Kumari, a women's right activist and director of the NGO Centre for Social Research (CSR).

The report that surveyed more than 30,000 youth in more than 25,000 household, further revealed that 89 per cent of girls in the said age group do household work on a daily basis, against the 76.8 per cent boys. "How can you expect the girls to think for out of the box career choices when they are made to do household chores at that age," Kumari asked.

The report further said that 4.3 per cent more rural girls are dropping out of schools than boys, as they reach the age of 18. "The major source of education in rural areas is government schools. It's high time that more inclusive and interdisciplinary education models are introduced through public schooling in these areas," said Ameeta M Wattal, an educationist.

"It's very important to give a comfortable environment to girls to encourage them to continue with their studies. There have been reports about girls dropping out of schools upon attaining puberty due to unavailability of toilets in their schools. All these basic things should be taken care of first," she added.

Mobile Phone usage

• 73% of the young people had used a mobile phone within the last week. Mobile phone usage is widespread in the 14-18 age group.
• 22%  of the females never used a mobile phone. On the other hand, only 12 percent of males had not .
• 82% 18-year-olds have used a mobile phone in the last week. Among 14 year-olds, the number is 64 per cent.