Education of the Girl Child in India

The Social, Cultural, and Economic Factors

‪By Aliza Keen

Aliza Keen, a third-year student at Albany Law School, did her undergraduate work at DePauw University where she majored in both English Writing and Conflict Studies. She is a Senior Editor for International Law Studies and a member of the Women’s Law Caucus.

She has worked as a law clerk at Carter Conboy and the Civil Service Employees, as well as a legal intern at Gyandoh Asmah & Co., a law firm in Accra, Ghana. She is currently a law clerk at Hiscock & Barclay, LLP.
This paper was prepared for Professor Farley’s International Children’s Rights class.


Education is both an idea and commodity that we as a society, country, and world should invest in. Education has the power to break boundaries, encourage development, a sense of self worth, and inspire progress. On a larger scale, a successful educational system has the ability to bolster a country, stimulate an economy, and inspire personal progress. Unfortunately, many times the opportunity to gain an education in India is not as accessible and available to female children as they are to male children.

India has the second largest school system in the world, with roughly 800,000 primary and upper primary schools, 1.9 million teachers, and 111 million students in the ‘recognized’ schools. However, India reports that roughly twenty-five percent of their girl population is not enrolled in schools, compared to that of ten percent for boys. There are a number of factors that affect the education of the girl child in India. For the purposes of this paper, the three factors that will be discussed are the social, cultural and economic factors.

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