DPEP- Gujarat has specifically focused on addressing the gender disparities in primary education, as could be seen in the statistical data available in enrollment, retention, and drop-out of the girl children in the project district of Banaskantha, Panchmahal and Dangs.

Disparity in learning achievement of girls, particularly, those from socially and economically disadvantaged groups are also very evident. It has been our endeavor to incorporate a gender perspective in all aspects of planning and implementation to make it an integral part of the programme in Gujarat.

Government of Gujarat is determined to expand the activities related to gender education and continuous efforts are being made to ensure that the gender education becomes an integrated part of the whole education system.

During the last six months the following work has been done in the field of gender education.

The Master Trainers were oriented on the issues to be tackled in gender education, during a comprehensive workshop at the Din Dayal Institute, Gandhinagar from April 28 - May 3, '99. During this workshop, the district level officers, BRC co-ordinators and Additional BRC co-ordinators were given training on the focus areas for gender education.

Mahila Sangam is a new scheme for gender education under DPEP that has been launched in Dist. Dangs on pilot basis. It has succeded in bringing about positive attitudinal change in the local tribals, towards primary education. Under this scheme, former students of Ritumbhara Vidyalaya in Ahwa, have been brought together for the community work for our project. As per the recommendations of VIIIth JRM, these girl -volunteers are being given honorarium, also.

On May 22,'99, a meeting with these female-volunteers was organised at Ahwa, Dangs, to discuss implemen-tation of the program with them. They were trained on the community work. They were also taught how to conduct the door-to-door survey in the villages of the district. The forms to be filled in by them would give complete details of every family they survey. During this meeting they were taught how to fill in these forms. They are to give monthly report of their activities.

Mahila Sangam has identified 11 Alternative schools for girls of which 4 are for never enrolled girls of 9 to 14 years of age. The dropout girls have been identified and taken in ALSs. Teachers are undergoing training.

A meeting with Dr. Prerna Mohite of ECD-LRC Centre, M.S. University, was held in Baroda on June 8, '99, for the discussion on the study assigned to her for recommendation for establishment and modernization of PPTC training institute.

A meeting was organised with Mahila Sarpanches at Santalpur and Deodar block in Dist.Banaskantha, to orient them on generating gender awareness and how they could play a vital role in increasing girls’DPEP- Gujarat has specifically focused on addressing the gender disparities in primary education, as could be seen in the statistical data available in enrollment, retention, and drop-out of the girl children in the project district of Banaskantha, Panchmahal and Dangs.

Disparity in learning achievement of girls, particularly, those from socially and economically disadvantaged groups are also very evident. It has been our endeavor to incorporate a gender perspective in all aspects of planning and implementation to make it an integral part of the programme in Gujarat.

Government of Gujarat is determined to expand the activities related to gender education and continuous efforts are being made to ensure that the gender education becomes an integrated part of the whole education system.

During the last six months the following work has been done in the field of gender education.

A meeting with Dr. Prerna Mohite of ECD-LRC Centre, M.S. University, was held in Baroda on June 8, '99, for the discussion on the study assigned to her for recommendation for establishment and modernization of PPTC training institute.

A meeting was organised with Mahila Sarpanches at Santalpur and Deodar block in Dist.Banaskantha, to orient them on generating gender awareness and how they could play a vital role in increasing girls’ enrollment in schools in their villages.

Following the successes of Community Sammelans viz. Rabari and Rajput, Sammelans were organised for other communities in all three DPEP Districts. The main objective of these Sammelans was to sensitize the backward communities about the need of education especially, for girls.

‘Machhi’ is a traditional fishing community living on both the banks of river Mahi of Santrampur Block of Panchmahal district. Economically and educationally this community is very backward. Ignorance, illiteracy, superstitious, social and religious orthodoxy is widely prevalent among them. The patriarchal community gives least importance to girl’s education and practices child marriage. The abysmally low female literacy of 20.69 % speaks volumes about their status. When asked, how was the Sammelan, the female group replied, " we have got the means by which we can educate our children especially, daughters, and through education we can come at par with the other sections of the society." After attending the Sammelan, they were all bubbling with confidence and a sign of determination to educate their children was clearly visible on their face.

On 30th June, after 15 days, ‘Pravesh Utshav’ was held at Kharavada. Children rallies were organised. The mothers themselves turned out in large numbers for the ‘Pravesh Utshav’, which was an ample proof of their enthusiasm and determination to educate their children. Young school-going children put tilak, and went round in ‘Prabhat Pheri’. Sweets were distributed among children. On that day, about 200 children were enrolled in the local primary school. These included 88 girls who had never enrolled before. Since all the children who should be enrolled are now in school, 100% enrollment has been achieved in the village. 2 ALS centres were opened, especially for girls and dropout girls were re-enrolled in Upper-Primary school (Std.5th-7th). "Whatever has happened to us should not happen to our daughters. We would like to see our daughters live a happy and self-sufficient life, though we could not live a good life" was the common feeling of mothers. In a follow up meeting, a mahila leader, Mrs. Laduben Machhi, told, "now we are giving due attention and care to our daughters and sending them to school regularly would be our responsibility". While talking, her eyes were lit with aspiration and determination, which are nothing less than an awakening.

In their effort to creat an active group, a ‘Mahila Mandal’, of 36 members was formed, at Kharvada. The application for starting a vocational training programme was forwarded to the Mahila Arthik Vikas Nigam and was cleared that means the vocational training programme is soon going to start for the women of Kharvada. This active mahila group, after taking vocational training, could take up some household occupation and support the family income. Apart from this, the Mahila Mandal could also motivate the community women for girls education and work as a catalyst for social change.

• Preparation of Gender Specific Strategic Plan

The preparation of gender specific strategic plan was undertaken during this quarter. On the basis of progress of the previous year and feed-back of the activities conducted in the previous year, the District Gender Plan was prepared.

Each Gender co-ordinators at the districts has selected 3 BRCs having low female literacy rate as the focus area. These three BRC-co-ordinators will select 3 CRCs having low literacy rate. Since we have Additional BRC co-ordinators to work with the BRC-co-ordinator, each BRCC and ABRCC will select 3 CRCs. Thus, in each selected block, 6 CRCs will be paying full attention to the focus area.

The 6 CRCs will select 5 villages in their CRCs which have low rates of boys and girls (52 : 48 is ideal). This data has been already provided to them and the ratio has been calculated for the selection of the villages. Thus, there will be 3 BRCs in Banaskantha, 3 BRCs in Panchmahals and 1 BRC in Dangs (as it is a single block) - a total of 7 BRCs.

A total of 42 CRC-coordinators will be covering the focus areas. Each CRCC will select 5 villages, so that 90 villages in Banaskantha, 90 villages in Panchmahals and 30 villages in Dangs will be covered as the focus area, making it a total of 210 villages.

Intensive work will be carried out in these focus villages. The home survey and data will be collected before the enrollment drive in all the villages. The integrated approach will be adopted in the villages of the focus area, through out the year.

Deodar in Banaskantha is one of the most backward block, with 11.84 % female literacy rate. Thakor is a community which is socially and educationally very backward. Lack of awareness about the value education and especially girls’ education is the reason for the community’s backwardness. To change this situation and to increase the literacy rate of women in the Thakor community in Deodar block; the ‘Thakor Mahila Jagruti Sammelan’ was organized.

The entire preplanning exercise and hectic preparations ultimately culminated in the ‘Thakor Mahila Jagruti Sammelan’ on 30th August,’99 at Kotarwada village in Deodar Block.

The chief element of the entire campaigning strategy was to get an opinion leader of the Thakor community to advocate the virtues of sending children to school. His holiness Shri Sadaram Bapu is one such figure who is religious leader in his own right and has a larger than life persona in the eyes of the Thakor community. He was invited to offer his blessings to the members of the Thakor community and explain to them the importance of sending children to school with a special emphasis on the girl child.

The men and women, dressed up in their traditional wear, presented a riot of colours on the festive occasion. The crowd The waiting was soon over with the arrival of 'Bapu', as they fondly call him. All eyes turned towards Bapu with reverence and devotion as their gaze followed his ascent to the podium. He was their Messiah, their God. Their belief, trust and faith personified.

‘Bapu’ was accorded a warm welcome by the children and staff members of the school. The principal of Kotarwada primary school rendered a beautiful prayer song. Thereafter, the Deputy District Development Officer of Banaskantha district gave a speech welcoming his Holiness, shri. Sadaram Bapu on the occasion. Bapu inaugurated the Sammelan by lighting a lamp, which signified transition from the darkness of ignorance to enlightenment.

The low enrollment rate of the girls belonging to the community, in primary schools, is a matter of grave concern for us. It is important to create awareness amongst the community members on this issue. It is equally important that the people should consider the school as an integral part of their community and provide learning opportunities for these children.

OIC, Tribal from SPO, He stressed on giving further impetus to the efforts for gender education as educating a girl meant educating an entire family.

The lady teachers of Kotarwada primary school presented a skit on the theme of gender education. The Taluka Development Officer (TDO) of Deodar Block Panchayat expressed his happiness on seeing that a large number of people from the Thakor community had gathered for the ‘Sammelan’. He urged them to fully understand and absorb the message communicated to them by DPEP. Thakor community women leader from Sanesada, also spoke on the importance of the gender education in the context of the ‘Sammelan’.

Given the enthusiastic response it is expected that there will be large scale enrollment of girls in the age group of 9 to 14 years during the enrollment drive ending August 31,’99. The enrollment figures are awaited.

During the last quarter, DPEP initiated convergence with ICDS, to expand its activities to remote areas. ICDS workers are spread all over the districts and their grass-root activities are closely associated with mothers and children, hence DPEP and ICDS have jointly worked out an effective programme of pre-primary and primary education.

To build the capacity of Anganwadis for pre-primary education, the work of preparing the training module, allotted to ECD-LRC centre, M.S.university - Baroda and GCERT, has been completed. The training for Master Trainers has been conducted followed by training of Anganwadi workers in May ’99, at the taluka level by MTs.

The handbook in Gujarati and education kit are being given to Anganwadi workers in 3 districts.

This year, at State level, various activities are conducted to provide supplementary material to teachers and for community mobilization and awareness programme.

For these activities, various materials have been prepared for teachers and ICDS workers such as:

1. Hand book on gender education through curriculum

2. Module for pre-primary education for CDPOs and master trainers has been prepared.

3. Handbooks for ICDS worker at every centre.

4. Awareness material for ICDS workers and community workers.

The training of all the ICDS and Social welfare Balwadi workers is completed in the end of September.

1. Banaskantha 2139

2. PanchMahal 3365

• ECE AS for Girls

It has been observed that the girl child is engaged in one or the other household activities along with sibling care responsibilities. These girls either come to school with their siblings or stay back at home for their care. Hence, the idea of opening ECE -AS centres , where girls’ younger siblings can play at ECE centre and the +9 years girls can study in AS centre. A pilot project of 15 ECE AS centres in Banaskantha, Panch Mahals and Dangs is undertaken where ‘ICDS Anganwadis are not existing. The budgetary allocation has been already made and the work is underway. These ECE AS will encourage girls education and bring the out of school girls back to school. The ECE on the other hand, will provide pre-primary education to children.

A three day State level workshop on ‘Gender Awareness’ was held from August 10-12’99 at Din Dayal Institute, Gandhinagar. A total of 75 persons, including District Gender Co-ordinators, Liaison Officers of DIET, BRCC and CRCC of the ‘Focus Areas’, participated in the workshop. The objective of the workshop was to orient the BRCCs and CRCCs of the ‘Focus Areas’ on issues pertaining to gender awareness, methods of gender sensitization and girls enrollment and retention.

• Developing training methodology for gender sensitization for participants.

• Developing training methodology for motivating / creating awareness in rural people about gender biases.

• Evolving methods for clarifying gender concept, gender roles and needs and

• Addressing the gender issues at the grass root level.

• Preparatory Work for other Community Programmes

In the month of June, ’99, preparatory work was done to organise other community programmes in July,’99. A Bhil Mahila Sammelan is planned in Banaskantha district. A Madari Mahila Sammelan is planned to be organised at Amargarh in block Radhanpur, also in Banaskantha district. Madari is the community which makes it living by entertain people in road-shows involving trained animals, e.g. monkeys, bears, snakes and pythons. This community has traditionally discouraged girls education.

A handbook on gender education was prepared by the State Project Office and distributed to all the primary schools in Banaskantha, Panchmahals and Dangs districts. This handbook is a kind of a guide for teacher on addressing the gender issues in class-room transactions.

In the state of Gujarat, examplary work has been done in the area of community mobilisation.