An Analysis Of National Education Policy Focusing On Girl's Education And Challenges Of Child Marriage

Abstract

Education is the fundamental concept to attain human potential to develop an equitable and just society, thereby providing universal access to quality education and also in promoting national development. The global education development agenda reflected in the Goal 4 (SDG4) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by our nation in 2015 itself, seeks to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality of education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030.  NEP 2020 provides for setting up a Gender Inclusion Fund (GIF) to build the nation’s capability to provide equitable quality education for all girls. But Girl's education is a big challenge to India, and it is also very difficult to develop the girls socially and economically, as child marriage is one of the biggest obstacles. However, NEP offers an equity model in giving education, whereas most of the girls are forced to marry at an early age, which results in a plethora of problems such as health issues, personality development, empowerment of women, and so on. If we look into the dominant factors that lead to child marriage we can list out the issues of poverty, unemployment, economic backwardness, and superstitious beliefs among the lead factors. We can also notice the typical stereotypical issue of gender-based violence in imparting education to young girls. Poor and uneducated families usually favor boys when they deviate their mind in investing for education. In some places, schools do not meet the safety, hygiene or sanitation needs of girls. This paper focuses on analyzing the New Education Policy 2020 in addressing the girls education and the challenges of the child marriage which is one of the barrier to achieve the goal being set up by SDG4.