Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), formally known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EHA), poses several requirements of schools regarding students eligible for special education. One requirement is the Least Restrictive Means. To state simply, this requirement enforces the premise that if it is possible for a disabled student to be placed in general education classes with the help of aids and supplemental material, then this should be done. If however, the disabled students are in fact deterring from the other students abilities to learn appropriately then disabled children will need to be placed in a separate special education classroom.

However, this does not counteract the predisposition of female teachers to refer male students, based upon behavioral problems, to special education classes. Currently, there is no deterrent effect in force to prevent female teachers from referring a disproportionate number of male students to special education classes solely based upon their behavior. The courts are of little help due to the fact that there is no recourse for parents in the court system because teachers and school officials are deemed excluded from educational malpractice. Therefore, there is no incentive for a female teacher to not refer a child to a special education classroom based upon behavioral problems.

In short, gender disparity is a problem that is quickly growing in intensity. Without recourse in the court system, indemnity from educational malpractice coupled with the lack of male educators in the classroom, gender disparity in the classroom is only going to increase. This is a problem which needs to be addressed immediately both by educators and by the law.

This article will discuss the shocking statistical data as to the vast disparity between the sexes in special education classes as well as how a child gets referred to special education classes in the first place. There are three main theories scholars have identified to answer the question as to why there are more boys than girls in special education classes. These theories will be discussed and explored in turn. Each theory suggests that gender disparity not only has dire consequences on the dominate male gender but also on the underrepresented females. If a teacher feels that a female child is in need of special education classes, she might not get referred due to the fear that they will suffer from isolation and thus will suffer both physically and emotionally. Therefore, female students who are in actual need of these classes, will further suffer because they are being denied the education they are required to by law.

Further, “Gender Disparity” will set forth extra guidelines which IDEA should address and incorporate into their statute as well as a discussion about sex segregation in schools under Title IX. While educators may not be knowingly or intentionally sex segregating their students, sex segregation is exactly what they are accomplishing. As a result classrooms are dominated by male students.

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There are several compelling benefits associated with girls’ education, which include the reduction of child and maternal mortality, improvement of child nutrition and health, lower fertility rates, enhancement of women’s domestic role and their political participation, improvement of the economic productivity and growth, and protection of girls from HIV/AIDS, abuse and exploitation. Girls’ education yields some of the highest returns of all development investments, yielding both private and social benefits that accrue to individuals, families, and society at large by

• Reducing women’s fertility rates. Women with formal education are much more likely to use reliable family planning methods, delay marriage and childbearing, and have fewer and healthier babies than women with no formal education. It is estimated that one year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 percent. The effect is particularly pronounced for secondary schooling.
• Lowering infant and child mortality rates. Women with some formal education are more likely to seek medical care, ensure their children are immunized, be better informed about their children’s nutritional requirements, and adopt improved sanitation practices. As a result, their infants and children have higher survival rates and tend to be healthier and better nourished.
• Lowering maternal mortality rates. Women with formal education tend to have better knowledge about health care practices, are less likely to become pregnant at a very young age, tend to have fewer, better-spaced pregnancies, and seek pre- and post-natal care. It is estimated that an additional year of schooling for 1,000 women helps prevent two maternal deaths.
• Protecting against HIV/AIDS infection. Girls’ education ranks among the most powerful tools for reducing girls’ vulnerability. It slows and reduces the spread of HIV/AIDS by contributing to female economic independence, delayed marriage, family planning, and work outside the home, as well as conveying greater information about the disease and how to prevent it.
• Increasing women’s labor force participation rates and earnings. Education has been proven to increase income for wage earners and increase productivity for employers, yielding benefits for the community and society.
• Creating intergenerational education benefits. Mothers’ education is a significant variable affecting children’s education attainment and opportunities. A mother with a few years of formal education is considerably more likely to send her children to school. In many countries each additional year of formal education completed by a mother translates into her children remaining in school for an additional one-third to one-half year.

Girls’ education and the promotion of gender equality in education are vital to development, and policies and actions that do not address gender disparities miss critical development opportunities

Education enhances lives. It ends generational cycles of poverty and disease and provides a foundation for sustainable development. A quality basic education better equips girls and boys with the knowledge and skills  necessary to adopt healthy lifestyles, protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence  and adulthood. Educated adults are more likely to have fewer children, to be informed about appropriate child-rearing practices and to ensure that their children start school on time and are ready to learn.

In addition, a rights-based approach to education can address some of societies’ deeply rooted inequalities. These inequalities condemn millions of children, particularly girls, to a life without quality education – and, therefore, to a life of missed opportunities.
Humana works tirelessly to ensure that every child – regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background or circumstances – has access to a quality education. We focus on gender equality and work towards eliminating disparities of all kinds. Our innovative programmes and initiatives target the world’s most disadvantaged children: the excluded, the vulnerable and the invisible.

We work with a broad range of local, national and international partners to realize the educational and gender-equality goals established in the Millennium Declaration 6 and the Declaration on Education for All, and to bring about essential structural changes that are necessary to achieve social justice and equality for all.

Too many of the world’s children are out of school or receive spotty, sub-par educations. Each one of these children has dreams that may never be fulfilled, potential that may never be realized. By ensuring that every child has access to quality learning, we lay the foundation for growth, transformation, innovation, opportunity and equality.

Whether in times of crisis or periods of peace, in cities or remote villages, we are committed to realizing a fundamental, non-negotiable goal: quality education for all.

http://humana.org

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Social traditions and deep-rooted religious and cultural beliefs are most often the barriers to expanding girls’ educational opportunities in undeveloped countries around the world.

Did you know that:

• In parts of the Horn of Africa girls are abducted for marriage, causing them to be reluctant to walk the far distances to get to school?
• Throughout the Sahel region of Africa and parts of the Middle East, a dowry system, often promoting that girls leave their studies, is still in place?
• The AIDS crisis in Southern Africa and Asia drives many young women, little more than children themselves, to become heads of families, become involved in child trafficking and drop out of school?
• In parts of Latin America, girls and women from indigenous areas have little opportunity to learn to read and write?

Despite these conditions, there is much desire for change: Parents in even the poorest circumstances everywhere hope that their children will receive an education. Even though the barriers to education for girls in these countries are many, they are not insurmountable. This is why Save the Children works to reduce the obstacles to education for girls.

Understanding the barriers to girls’ education in particular is key to launching our innovative approaches. Educating girls and women results in:

• Healthier, better educated children and grandchildren;
• Fewer maternal deaths and reductions in the under 5 mortality rate;
• Delayed marriage and better parenting skills;
• Improved literacy and numeracy skills leading to greater economic opportunities;
• More skills and knowledge enhancing women’s self esteem and the well being of families.

The World Bank is a partner and one of many players in the international drive to improve gender equality and empower girls and women. World Bank activities focus on assisting countries’ own efforts to advance gender equality. Through its lending and non-lending activities, the Bank has helped to improve lives of girls in client countries. Since the World Conference of Education in Jomtien in 1990, the Bank’s emphasis in the area of girls’ education has increased and gender equality has been integrated as an important component of the Bank’s poverty reduction mission. The Education for All – Fast Track Initiative and the recent Education Sector Strategy Update have reinforced the World Bank’s commitment to the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals.

How are girls doing?: Success and Challenges

Girls’ enrollments tend to go upwards.  Thirty years ago, girls represented 38 percent of primary enrollments in low-income countries and boys, 62 percent.  Today, the gender gap has narrowed with girls representing 48 percent and boys 52 percent of primary enrollments (OECD/UNESCO, 2005).  Gross enrollment rates for girls in some low-income countries have gone from 52 percent to 94 percent over that same period. These averages, however, hide sharp differences among regions and countries.

Between 1999 and 2006, the worldwide number of children not in school declined rapidly from about 100 million to 75 million.  However, girls still constitute 55% of all out-of-school children, down from 59% in 1999.  Worldwide, for every 100 boys out-of-school there are 122 girls.  In some countries the gender gap is much wider. For example, for every 100 boys out of school in Yemen there are 270 girls, in Iraq 316 girls, in India 426 girls, and in Benin 257 girls (UNESCO GMR, 2007).  Gender differential access to school is usually caused by poverty, adverse cultural practices, schooling quality and distance to schools. However, there are some emerging challenges that reduce girls’ enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education. These are: HIV/AIDS, orphanhood, conflicts, emergencies and other fragile situations, gender-based violence, and information technology gender gap.

Gender disparities still remain in both primary enrollment and school completion rates. However, many low-income countries have registered improvements in primary school completion rates, with an average increase of 6 percent (from 63 percent in 1999 to 74 percent in 2006) (World Bank, EdStats, 2008). The completion rate for girls rose by 9 percentage points, from 57 percent in 1999 to 70 percent in 2006, whereas the primary school completion rates for boys increased only from 63 percent to 70 percent during the same period in low-income countries (World Bank, EdStats, 2008).

The MDG goal of gender parity in primary and secondary education by 2005 was not met in most regions; however, there is substantial cause for optimism.  Most of the developing countries are on course for closing gender gap in primary enrollment by 2015 if they continue at present rates of progress in enrollment and attendance rates. In order to achieve gender equality by 2015, more attention will need to be focused on access to include provision at the secondary and tertiary education levels, retention, quality, learning outcomes and relevance of education at all levels . Strategic directions for accelerating gender equality in education also include emphasize on monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions as well as their impact.

The targeted provision for girls under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan include :

• Free textbooks to all girls upto class VIII
• Separate toilets for girls
• Back to school camps for out-of-school girls
• Bridge courses for older girls
• Recruitment of 50% women teachers
• Early childhood care and Education centers in/near schools/convergence with ICDS programme etc.
• Teachers’ sensitation programmes to promote equitable learning opportunities
• Gender-sensitive teaching-learning materials including textbooks
• Intensive community mobilisation efforts
• ‘Innovation fund’ per district for need based interventions for ensuring girls’ attendance and retention.

Efforts are being made to generate a community demand for girls’ education and enabling conditions for people’s and women’s participation, to create the push factors necessary to guarantee girls education. Motivation and mobilisation of parents and the community at large, enhancing the role of women and mothers in school related activities and participation in school committees, and strengthening the linkages between the school, teachers and communities are some of the ways in which the enabling conditions are being created.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is a critical and essential input in freeing girls from sibling care responsibilities, leading to their regular attendance in school and in providing school readiness skills to pre-school children. The SSA works in a convergent mode with the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme to promote pre-school education by providing for training of Anganwadi workers, primary school teachers, and health workers for a convergent understanding of pre-school and ECCE. The SSA, like other programme in the past, provides funds under Innovative head (Rs. 15 Lakh per district) and under the NPEGEL component (for 3000 educationally backward blocks) to support pre-school component of ICDS or an interim pre-school centre where ICDS does not exist but is needed.

In addition, to target pockets where girls education is lagging behind, the Government of India  has launched two focussed interventions for girls – the National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) and the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) to reach out to girls from marginalised social groups in over 3272 educationally backward blocks in the country where the female rural literacy is below the national average and the gender gap in literacy is above the national average.

National Programme for Education of Girls for Elementary Level (NPEGEL)

The NPEGEL, launched in September 2003, is an integral but distinct component of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. It provides additional provisions for enhancing the education of underprivileged/disadvantaged girls at elementary level through more intense community mobilisation, the development of model schools in clusters, gender sensitisation of teachers, development of gender sensitive learning materials, early child care and education facilities  and provision of need-based incentives like escorts, stationery, work books and uniforms etc. for girls.

All Educationally Backward Blocks have been included under NPEGEL.

Under NPEGEL, around 40,187 Model cluster schools have been opened, 38,626 ECCE centres are being supported, 38,409 additional classrooms have been constructed, and 2,11,215 teachers have been given training on gender sensitisation, remedial teaching to 11,44,370 girls, bridge course covering 89,462 girls, including additional incentives like uniforms etc. to about 16073048 girls (upto 31^st  January, 2009). An outlay of Rs.578.18 crore was approved under NPEGEL for 2008-09.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV)

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) is a scheme launched in July 2004, for setting up residential schools at upper primary level for girls belonging predominantly to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities. The scheme is being implemented in educationally backward blocks of the country where the female rural literacy is below the national average and gender gap in literacy is above the national average. The scheme provides for a minimum reservation of 75% of the seats for girls belonging to SC, ST, OBC or minority communities and priority for the remaining 25%, is accorded to girls from families below poverty line. 

The scheme is being implemented in 27 States/UTs namely: Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Dadar & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

2578 KGBVs were sanctioned by Government of India till date. Of these, 427 KGBVs have been sanctioned in Muslim concentration blocks, 612 in ST blocks, 688 in SC blocks. As on 31^st January, 2009, 2423 KGBVs are reported to be functional (i.e. 94%) in the States and 1,90,404 girls enrolled in them (50,630 SC girls (27%); 58,682 ST girls (31%); 50,161 OBC girls (26%); 18,206 BPL girls (9%); 12,725 Minority girls (7%). Out of the total 2578 sanctioned KGBVs, 547 KGBVs have been constructed + 1262 are in progress and 769 have not been started.  

The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya scheme is merged with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the XI^th Plan with effect from 1^st April, 2007. 

            The National Evaluation of the KGBV scheme was undertaken between 29^th January to 20^th February 2007 in 12 States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Orissa, with 12 independent experts in girls education and another joint Evaluation of NPEGEL & KGBV scheme was also undertaken between 19^th November to 14^th December, 2007 in States of Assam, Manipur, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Mizoram, Tripura and Dadar & Nagar Haveli.

 State Initiatives for promoting girls education

• UP: Meena Manch- Forum for adolescent girls to discuss their own issues and motivate girls to attend school.
• Haryana: Bicycles are given to girls on joining class VI in a Govt. school located outside the village to prevent dropout at the end of class V and help girls to complete 8 years of schooling16171 girls in 2004-05 and more than 21000 girls 2005-06 benefitted from the programme       
• Uttar Pradesh:
• Intensive campaign for community mobilisation in selected villages; 21 days training of instructors; use of TLM; residential arrangement for girls and instructors; arrangements for sports, cultural programmes, life skills.
• MP : Decentralised provisioning of  additional incentives, e.g.: school uniforms, by the  local bodies, to motivate girls retention in schools.
• Uttaranchal
• : Provisioning ECE in a convergent mode with ICDS; SSA supporting with additional TLM; capacity building; honorarium; constructing rooms in primary schools for running ECE centres; relocation of ICDS centres in/near primary schools; synchronized timings of ECE and primary school
• Orissa – Kalasi Dhara (carrying earthen vessel) – An initiative to mobilise the community and Mother Teacher Associations to monitor the attendance of teachers and children, cleanliness of the school compound, regularity of classes being held. The designated mothers are also required to bring to school those children found to be absent by motivating their parents etc.
• Bihar: Summer Camps for Remedial Teaching, provided to girls.
• Madhya Pradesh: Open Learning for
• many girls who are unable to complete elementary education due to poor access. A tie up with State Open School where there is a 50:50 cost sharing between SSA & State Open School for the girls fees.

 Promising Indicators in respect of Girls

• Increase in Enrolment at primary level by 8.67 % (86.91 % in 2001-02 to 104.7% in
  2004-05) and at upper primary level by 13% (52.1% in 2001-02 to 65.1% in 2004-05).
• Girls constitute 48.09% of total enrolment at primary level and 46.51% at upper primary level (DISE 2006-07).
• Reduction in dropout rate by 14.46% (from 39.9 % in 2001-02 to 25.42 percentage points in 2004-05
• Increase in Gender parity:

-   GPI is 0.93 for primary and 0.87 for upper primary (DISE 2006-07). 28 States have primary level GPI over 0.90.

• Female teachers in schools have increased to 41.86% in 2006-07 (DISE).
• Girl’s toilets – At present 42.58% schools have girl toilets (DISE 2006-07). Being addressed in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and in convergence with Total Sanitation Programme of Ministry of Rural Development.