In an effort to ensure education of the girl child, the Punjab government recently announced free education for girls and women from nursery to higher studies in all government schools and colleges. With this initiative, CM Captain Amarinder Singh has fulflled one of his manifesto promises towards women’s empowerment in the state.
In the state assembly session, the CM announced free textbooks to all female students in government schools from the next academic session. He also said that the books will also be made available online, from where students can download them for free. From the next session, Nursery and LKG will also be reintroduced in government schools. Apart from all these efforts, the CM also declared free wi-fi in 13,000 primary schools and all 48 government colleges.
The Congress government in the state has introduced many reforms for women's empowerment since coming to power. Earlier, the state government had increased the reservation of women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies from 33% to 50%.
Other similar initiatives taken in different parts of the country include 'Meri Lado Kare Padhai' initiative which was launched last year in Gurugram to give free education to girls from classes 9 to 12 as the Right To Education Act of the Indian Constitution says that all girls are entitled to get free education up to class 8.
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Recently, at least five IIT branches, including Mandi, Delhi, Varanasi, Mumbai and Ropar said they were considering waiving tuition fees of all girl students who take admission in the prestigious institute. Even the Uttar Pradesh government announced last year that it would distribute Rs 267.30 crore among 89,100 meritorious girl students under the amended Kanya Vidya Dhan scheme. Under this scheme, the state government had promised to give out cheques of Rs. 30,000 to girl students who performed well in intermediate or equivalent examinations.
Even the Jharkhand government provides free education to every girl, irrespective of caste up to post-graduate level as was announced in 2012.
Picture credit- 3.bg.blogspot.com
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