Professor Nishith Prakash of Northeastern University of USA revealed the move. Prakash, who had been conducting a comparative study, “Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls’ Lives with Bicycles” with three other researchers
The Bihar government’s model of bicycles to girls has been successfully replicated in seven African countries including Zambia. The move was also endorsed by United Nations as a tool of increasing enrolment in schools and empowering women over all.
This was revealed by Professor Nishith Prakash of Northeastern University of USA. Prakash, who had been conducting a comparative study, “Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls’ Lives with Bicycles” with three other researchers, reported indianexpress.com,
In 2017, Prkash along with another researcher Karthik Muralidharan, had studied the impact of Bihar’s bicycle scheme for the Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI), Patna.
Prakash said: “One year after the intervention of the same Bihari model in Zambia, absenteeism of girls in schools had been reduced by 27 per cent, late arrivals by 66 per cent and average commuting time to schools by 35 per cent. The girls’ Math test scores had improved. A desire to delay marriage and pregnancy to an optimum age was also induced in them. This model was subsequently taken up by the United Nations (UN) and unveiled in another six African countries”.
Prakash, who along with other researchers had done a study on Bihar’s “Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana” for ADRI, found that the scheme had managed to reduce the gender gap in education. He added that the Bihar model served as a fountainhead for him to carry out a fruitful experiment in Zambia.
Prakash added the Bihar model worked because it effectively addressed major challenges for many adolescent girls such as challenge of girls’ safety when commuting to school and also getting over deep-rooted cultural norms. After introduction of this scheme, school dropout rates among girls was reduced by almost 40 per cent
The ongoing research suggested that heterogeneity analysis by distance to school showed empowerment results, suggesting a greater impact for girls that live further away from school. “These results suggest that empowerment outcomes worked through increased attendance in schools”, said the reseach paper.
The bicycle for girls is one of the schemes of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s government under which girls from Class nine to 12 were given free bicycles to go to schools. The scheme, introduced since 2006, effected a social change as girls, particularly in rural Bihar, had not been riding bicycles freely because of social taboo. The Bihar CM Nitish Kumar would often say if he had to choose his one work from his long tenure, it would be his bicycle scheme for girls.
Prakash added the Bihar model worked because it effectively addressed major challenges for many adolescent girls such as challenge of girls’ safety when commuting to school and also getting over deep-rooted cultural norms. After introduction of this scheme, school dropout rates among girls was reduced by almost 40 per cent.
Ashmita Gupta of ADRI said: “It was great to learn that the Bihar model was replicated in African countries and more importantly was endorsed and adopted by UN for six African countries”.
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