Girls Education

A young Rajasthani girl attends the festival for International Women's Day.

Girls especially benefit from the Barefoot College's development programs. Nearly 70% of rural children in India do not have time to go to school during the day. They work collecting drinking water, fetching firewood, or tending animals and other essential domestic work for their families.

The Barefoot College began Night Schools for these children in 1975 to provide an education that draws on the knowledge of the community. Literate young men and women in the community were selected and trained for 6 months to become Barefoot Teachers.

By improving the learning environment of the night schools, by providing drinking water through rain water harvesting, or by providing solar lighting instead of kerosene lamps, and giving a sense of security, mothers started to send their girls to school for the first time.

Since 1975, over 50,000 children have studied at these Night Schools -- and the concept of the Night Schools has been replicated in other states in India.

Join the children at Night School >

The schools are administered by the Village Education Committees. Each Committee has an average membership of 15-30 villagers including 5-10 women. The Committees have their bank accounts at the nearest rural bank. Two of its members along with one member from the College staff operate bank accounts. The Committees are responsible for day-to-day administration of the 250 night schools, purchase of teaching/learning material, repairs and maintenance of night school buildings and disbursement of honorariums to night school teachers.

The Children's Parliament controls and supervises the night schools. It is based on the belief that giving power to the people who have a vested interest in the school is the best way of ensuring its success -- as well as making the children aware of political structure and processes.

The Children's Parliament since its inception in 1993, has had five terms of office. The Parliament has elected representatives from night schools, situated in four districts of Rajasthan, covering a geographical outspread of 700-800 square kilometres, from semi-arid to the desert regions.

Most of the Prime Ministers have been girls, simply because more girls attend the Night Schools than boys.


Meet Bhagchand Dev, one of the former Prime Ministers of the Children's Parliament >

Bhagchand Dev, Women of Tilonia