New Delhi, Oct. 2: The Centre is set to embark on a programme to build hostels for schoolgirls in 3,500 blocks identified as educationally backward to leap across India’s gender gap in schooling opportunities.

The novel plan prepared by the human resource development (HRD) ministry has been cleared by the Planning Commission and the finance ministry and may receive the cabinet’s nod in early October, government officials said.

India has steadily improved its gender parity index (GPI) — a tool that compares education indicators for boys and girls to arrive at an overall figure indicative of the state of girl child education.

In terms of enrolment, the latest government statistics — released this year — calculate a GPI of 0.91 for Classes I to VIII, which translates into 91 girls enrolled per 100 boys. The figure was 81 girls for every 100 boys a decade ago. Girls have a lower dropout rate — 25 per cent — than boys’ 31 per cent.

But overall, girls still lag behind boys in educational opportunities by just over 3 per cent — India has a GPI just below 97 per cent.

Under the UN Millennium Development Goals that India is a signatory to, the country needs to eliminate any difference in educational opportunities for girls and boys by 2015.

One of the key factors identified by the HRD ministry for the disparity in educational statistics against girls is the absence of residential facilities near schools, ministry sources said.

Many blocks in India have only one or two schools, often several kilometres away from some villages, a senior official said.

While parents agree to allow boys to travel these distances, they are sceptical about letting girls do the same, the official said.

“Ideally, we would need schools in every village. Till we achieve that, we need residential facilities in schools so that girls do not have to travel,” the official added.

Several state governments run schemes under which they provide hostel facilities to students, but mostly in the blocks identified as relatively better off in terms of education standards, sources said.

The new scheme — the largest single hostel building programme India has undertaken — is to be implemented in 3,500 blocks with enrolment rates below the national average, or the dropout ratio above the average.

Each hostel will be able to accommodate 100 students. The project is expected to cost Rs 1,000 crore.