Gender equality education is a must in education institutions to abolish gender inequality in the society and it has been proved in a study in Jharkhand where after such education, up to one/fourth of girls students came out to support fellow girl students witnessing violence.
The Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS) released a report based on a study in 80 schools of Ranchi and Khunti districts of Jharkhand, which tells a lot about the gender equity education and its impact on students of the state.
In its study, GEMS found only after a period of three months of gender sensitisation education, about 71.5 per cent of girl students protested/reported to their teachers or parents, any type of physical violence against them, while earlier only 47.9 per cent of them used to protest or report such incidents.
The study says before the education, 18 per cent girl students used to remain either mute spectators or enjoy the physical violence against other girl students, but post-gender sensitisation education, this number has reduced to 13.4 per cent.
The study found that the biggest change was observed in sexual violence against girls, where before the education only 37.7 per cent girl students used to report such violence, but after education, the number increased to 63.7 per cent.
In case of boy students, similar type of positive changes have been found for all sorts of violence against the students. Even the number of boy students increased by 20 per cent in reporting sexual violence against them after gender sensitisation education.
"We need to plan how quickly we can within the next one year take the GEMS programme to all 40,000 schools of Jharkhand. It was very important to start these discussions young, because what it taught in childhood can influence the entire life," a release quoting Jharkhand HRD Principal Secretary Aradhana Patnaik, said.
Hemlata Verma from International Centre for Research on Women said while unveiling the report that the need for GEMS has been felt to a great extent in our society and its result has been reflected in the studies.
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