Charting a new course: Girls at a Muslim Institute programme. Picture by Amit Datta

There are many “disadvantages” of educating a girl child.

Over the past few years, educated women of the Muslim community in Calcutta, especially from the poorer sections, have been forced to marry barely literate men. But with girls’ education increasing at a faster ratio than boys’, the problem is becoming severe.

Shehnaz Khatun, 26, from Kidderpore, an HS graduate, is worried for her sister-in-law Zaheera.

“Zaheera, a teacher, is an MA. She must be 35, but she hasn’t been able to find a match,” says Shehnaz. “If we get an educated man, we can’t afford the dowry. The men who agree to marry her have not passed high school.”

“My parents used to regret that they had educated me,” says Shabana Khatun of Diamond Harbour Road.

Shabana, 32, is a graduate in science from Gurudas College; she is married to a businessman who is “Madhyamik pass”. “It was beyond my parents to get me married to a professional or educated man. They want more dowry.”

She says the difference with her husband didn’t matter. But others were not so lucky.

Sultana Begum from Iqbalpur, 27, remembers how she got married to a “class VIII pass” tailor after she cleared the HS. “I had to get married because my husband was hunarmand (skilled),” she says.

“But when I wanted to study for a BA degree, my in-laws became suspicious,” adds Sultana.

“Some girls feel shy to introduce their husbands,” says Anwar Premi of the Sir Syed Group of Schools. He blames the problem on poverty ? “because of the high rate at which Muslim boys drop out to earn a living,” says Premi.

At this year’s High Madrasah Examination, equivalent to the Madhyamik, boys numbered 9,972 and girls 13,796, an almost 30 per cent difference.

A survey by the West Bengal Urdu Academy says only 11 per cent children of school-going age in the community are actually enrolled.

A school under the Syed group reflects the rising dropout rate of students as they move up high school. In Class V, it was 27 per cent, in Class VI 38 per cent, in Class VII 38 per cent and in Class VIII 36 per cent. In Class IX, it shot up to 50 per cent. Before the board exam, 24 per cent dropped out.

Boys who stop going to school migrate in large groups for livelihood to the Gulf, Mumbai or other cities, says Shamsul Aslam, the president of the madarsa education board.

Premi says: “In the villages, boys and girls are equally pressured to leave school and earn. In the city, even a poor family would want the girl to not work.”

But S.S.Z. Adnan, chairperson of the West Bengal Minorities Commission, says the emphasis on girls’ education is not limited to the city. “There is a huge rise in female literacy among Muslims. I met a van driver in a South Dinajpur village spending Rs 500 a month on his daughter’s school and hostel expenses,” he says.

“Reservation for women in the panchayats has helped. Women with a taste of power want their daughters to be educated.”

But he is aware of the other fallout ? a girl is often educated as a degree means paying less dowry, a recent development among Muslims here.

The women point out their greatest problem: where do they go after school?

An educated woman from a poor family can at the most become a private tutor or a primary school teacher, says a girl. Neither the husband nor the family approve of all jobs.

Nasreen, a pretty 18-year-old who has just cleared her HS and is preparing to get married, smiles shyly. “Sochte to bahut hai. Lekin shayad kuchh kar nahin paoongi (I dream a lot. But maybe I will never be able to do anything).”

All names changed on request