Education constitutes an indispensable force in the quest for overall development of any nation. Especially, a non-gender discriminatory education is considered as the cornerstone for achieving socio-economic, scientific and technological development of country. While India seems to be prospering on overall literacy rate; 12% in 1947 to 74.04% in 2011[ Census, 2011], a considerable gap between male and female literacy rate is witnessed.
India has seen a substantial improvement in the female literacy rate from 53.7 % in 2001[Census, 2001] to 65.46 % in 2011[ Census, 2011]. However, the tale is not same for all the states of India.
While Rajasthan’s literacy rate has witnessed aloft tendency and it was 67.06% as per 2011 Census, it is the state with lowest female literacy rate of 52.66%. The state witnessed only 5% improvement in difference between the male-female literacy rates from around 32% in 2001 to 27% in 2011.
School enrolment is an important indicator of future of children’s growth which further impacts the overall development of the community. In a significant leg up to the governments literacy initiative, the eighth All India Education Survey (AISES) conducted by NCERT covers the school education system with respect to access, enrolment, retention, teachers and availability of basic facilities. The survey indicates trends from 2002 to 2009 which indicates that despite the overall growth in enrolment, there is cause for worry as the data confirms the disquieting fact that girls education continues to be interrupted after primary school with the percentage of enrolment declining at the higher secondary school stage. While there is a maximum increase of 48.13% in girls enrolment in primary schools, the figure dips to 42.56% in higher secondary schools. Similar trend is observed in percentage of girls enrolment in schools in rural areas. Though at the All India level, the proportion of girls in the age group 11 to 14 who are not enrolled in school dropped from 6% in 2012 to 5.5% in 2013. However, in Rajasthan the proportion of out of school girls age 11 to 14 rose for the second year in a row, from 8.9% in 2011 to 11.2% in 2012 to 12.1% in 2013
Poor enrolment ratio and high school dropouts is resulting in low retention in the state schools directly contributing to further worsening of already poor literacy rate of the state, Rajasthan, against India; Rajasthan’s literacy rate is about 7% less than the average literacy rate of India . Other than universally identified factors; poverty, illiterate parents, lack of community awareness, location of schools, inadequate infrastructure et al. state of Rajasthan faces several state specific challenges including social backwardness (Rajasthan notifies maximum child marriages till date) and harsh climatic conditions that has vastly contributed in very poor literacy rate.
Water scarcity in Rajasthan, has a huge impact on the children education. Extreme climate ranging from near freezing winters to around 50oC in summers, receiving as little as 100-200mm rainfall annually and extremely saline ground water, Marwar region faces severe water scarcity. With the increasing change in climate, droughts have become recurring phenomena. Further with absence of surface water sources, the crisis manifests itself in acute drinking water scarcity. Scarcity forces people to compromise on quality and consume contaminated water, having long term impacts on health as one of the possible reasons for low attendance rate in schools. Also, drinking water scarcity is an economic strain as communities buy water transported through tankers from large distances encompassing male child to turn away from schools to earn those extra pennies and girl child to support their families either by walking miles to procure drinking water or take care of their younger siblings, consequently formulating vicious cycle of underdevelopment.