Savitri Gayatri - Part 1

Meet Savitri, an 18-year-old bright student of class 12th from a small town of Karnataka. She belongs to a typical orthodox family where girls return home by 7 pm. She got her board results and gave state-level entrance tests. She passed both boards as well as state-level exams with flying colors. She could get into any top colleges in her state but chose the local engineering college of her town because

1)    There was no awareness in her small town regarding the importance of the pedigree of the colleges

2)    Being a girl, moving out of her town for studies let alone out of state was considered scandalous owing to the orthodox mentality in her surrounding

3)    In our country, still a majority of families think twice before investing in the education of girls. They believe it is rather beneficial to spend on her lavish wedding in the future over her expenses in a better quality of education

This isn’t just one case I am presenting. There would be thousands of such cases in a country like India where educating a girl child itself is a big issue, leave alone the best colleges. In such a situation, tapping potential female candidates is a grave challenge. Measures like the Women’s hackathon open to all colleges would be a great initiative to identify talented female talent. Of course, this isn’t a foolproof solution as this needs to be planned well with the active participation of all the stakeholders – organizations, institutions, female students, their families, etc.