INDIA: A critical analysis on the influences of gender on educational opportunities
The discussion in this paper will focus on the influences being female has on educational opportunities in India. It is important to note that that there are issues for males in accessing education, particularly those from the poorest backgrounds, and that childhood and schooling differs depending on the era and location of birth as well as the culture into which you are born. However, educational opportunities in India tend to be greater for boys, especially those from wealthy backgrounds, and this should be the same for all children regardless of their class, caste, gender and socio-economic background (Gasterland, 2009). In India ‘[w]ide spread poverty and discriminatory cultural practices [particularly places] the girl child at a serious disadvantage that starts at conception and extends throughout her life’ (Kumar et al, 2007: 7). The essay will discuss the effects of early marriage, school infrastructure, opportunity costs and safety on girls’ educational opportunities whilst considering culture, poverty and government policy. Examples from the southern state of Kerala and the northern state of Bihar will be used to try to gain an understanding of why some girls are able to access schooling; as they demonstrate vast differences in male to female pupil ratios within schools. This can be noted in the fact that in 2004/05 the southern state of Kerala had an enrolment rate in of ninety-eight percent, with a higher proportion of girls than boys and only a small difference between urban and rural areas, whereas the northern state of Bihar enrolment rates were sixty-five percent with girls having a lower rate than boys and rural areas suffering greater gender inequality than urban areas (UNICEF, 2011; Bandyopadhyay and Subrahmanian, 2008).

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