CRY - Child Rights and You, a prominent child rights organisation in India, launched the Poori Padhai Desh Ki Bhalai campaign, aiming to ensure every girl completes her education up to Class 12th. This seven-week nationwide initiative seeks to revolutionise public awareness and societal attitudes toward girls education, addressing the millions of girls across India who remain out of school and unable to access secondary and higher secondary education. The campaign kicked off in various districts of Uttar Pradesh and across CRYs intervention projects in 20 states. It includes mass awareness rallies, signature campaigns, and outreach programmes. Puja Marwaha, CEO of CRY, emphasised the critical importance of the campaign, saying: Ensuring higher secondary education for girls is essential for their empowerment and the nations development. Targeted interventions are needed to support girls beyond elementary education, including adequate public provisioning, financial incentives, improved infrastructure, community engagement, and robust enforcement of laws against child marriage. Generating mass awareness and social resonance around girls education is crucial. Soha Moitra, Regional Director at CRY, highlighted the urgency of this initiative, noting the landmark RTE Act of 2009 and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which aims to extend universal, free, and quality education up to age 18. Despite these advancements, the latest UDISE+ 2021-22 data shows that only 58.2% of girls are enrolled in higher secondary education, with one in three girls out of school at the secondary level and one in eight dropping out before completing secondary education. CRYs fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh indicates that socio-economic challenges, cultural norms, gender discrimination, early marriages, inadequate school facilities, long travel distances, and safety concerns significantly hinder girls educational journeys. These barriers contribute to higher dropout rates and increased vulnerability to child labor, underage marriage, teenage pregnancy, abuse, exploitation, and trafficking.

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