Students join hands to bring back girl student dropouts

Adopting a novel way to bring back dropout girl students to the school, the Rajasthan education department is running a unique drive to embrace the girls for a better tomorrow. Thousands of girls who abandoned education after completing Class 8 have been enrolled back across the state under the initiative called 'Gargi Manch'.

This manch is a group of 23 students from higher secondary schools who visit homes of dropout girls, convince them for enrollment while detailing about how higher education can change their lives. The students who quit education post upper primary are the set target of Gargi Manch in order to bring the dropouts back to schools and help them complete education till Class 12.

In an order circulated to the heads of the schools, the department accepted a huge gender gap in the higher education as girls students, particularly in rural areas, abandon studies for marriage and other family reasons.

The Gargi students have been assigned to identify such girls, counsel them, Their work however does not end there as they track the progress of these students after enrolment as well. "This Manch is constituted of 23 students. Out of them 15 are girls and 8 are boys. Their counselling is yielding positive results and dropout girl students have been enrolled in huge numbers for higher secondary education," said an official.

The reason behind naming the group 'Gargi' is to inspire girls for higher achievements in life. Gargi Vachaknavi was a renowned woman scholar of the ancient times. The Vedic literature praises her as a highly knowledgeable natural philosopher and an expounder of the Vedas. When conferred with such title, the girls students will be more eager to follow in her footsteps, the department officials feel.