Bal Shikshya Abhiyan

Keeping 3,200 children in school through scholarships, learning camps and child-friendly classrooms.

Bal Shikshya Abhiyan exists because of one number: in the four wards we surveyed in 2080, 31% of girls who finished Class 8 did not enrol in Class 9. The boys' figure was 9%.

The programme works on the reasons the survey actually found — cost at the point of transition, distance to the nearest secondary school, and household work that falls to the eldest daughter — rather than the reasons we expected to find.

Each of the eleven partner schools has a management committee that selects scholarship recipients and posts the list on the school notice board. Attendance is reviewed monthly with parents. Where distance is the barrier, we support hostel costs rather than building anything new.