The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of School Education and Literacy launched the Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls’ Education in India.
The tool, which has been developed with the support of UNICEF, will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities, on specific gender related education indicators.
Components of the Digital Gender Atlas
1. The main components of the Gender Atlas are : (i) Composite Gender Ranking (ii) Trend Analysis of Gender Indicators (iii) Vulnerabilities based on educational indicators in districts with substantial tribal, schedule caste, minority population in educationally backward blocks and in left wing extremist districts, and the low sex ratio districts seleced uner Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme.
2. Composite Gender Ranking: Selected gender related indicators have been identified for primary, upper primary and secondary education. A composite gender index has been developed using the formulae that are used for calculating the EDI in DISE. But for gender elated indicators. Accordingly, the selected gender indicators have been grouped into four – Access, Infrastructure, Teachers and Outcomes. The Atlas provides an aggregated picture of performance through a comparative visualization of composite gender index based quartile ranking of gender related indicators at National, State, District and Block levels.
3. Trend Analysis for Gender Related Indicators: The Atlas enables a trend analysis and tracking of performance of individual gender related indicators (that have been used for the composite gender ranking) across a period of three years
4. Spatial Display of Pockets with Multiple Disadvantages Related to Education: Spatial identification of pockets in states or blocks in districts where juxtaposition of key relevant gender indicators reveal maximum disadvantages, viz., education development
5. Vulnerabilities: This component of the Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on a composite index of three broad indicators (i) rural female literacy – from Census 2011 (ii) percentage girls/boys married below the legal age of marriage – DLHS and (iii) working children (bifurcated by gender and age groups of 5-14 years and 15-19 years – Census of India 2011. These maps are available up to the district level.
6. Children with Disabilities: This part of the Atlas visualizes the performance status of a single indicators related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14. The performance status of an individual indicator can be visualized at state and district level.