MUMBAI, March 8: Jagjit Kaur Anand crowned her struggle against odds to be a graduate on Sunday when she was felicitated for securing first class distinction (commerce) in the University Entrance Test (UET).``It is about ten years since I had passed my Std X examination. I could not continue with my education after I got married,'' said Anand (26). However, a failed marriage had unsettled her and left her with a 10-year-old daughter. She had a strong urge to raise her daughter in a way that she is not caught offguard by life. Promptly, she enrolled her name at Centre for Distance Education, SNDT Women's University.Fifty-year-old Tarabai Jorvekar from Ahmednagar too was prompted by similar conditions. She took to studying for a better tomorrow after years since she has last attended her Std IV classes. She was felicitated as a merit holder with a first class with distinction in UET (Arts).The Women's University who felicitated these women of grit had reason to be pleased. Statistics available with theDistance Education Centre indicated that an increasing number of women opted for correspondence course: from 784 in 1979 to 4,000 today in UET and currently there are 12,000 students including graduates and post graduates.Even as the SNDT University had good news for women taking up education in earnest, a day earlier at a seminar at Bhavan's college educationists, administrators and senior police officials expressed concern over increasing cases of suicides among female students.According to Additional Commissioner of Police (north-west), Satyapal Singh, among students below 18 years of age, the rate of death by suicide by 11 female students against six male students in 1992 rose to 87 females and 49 males in 1994. Among students upto 14 years, eight female students committed suicide against 9 males in 1995 while 22 female and 12 male students ended life in 1997 for failure in examinations and unknown causes. Between the age group of 15-29 years years, 39 female as against 37 male and due to unknowncauses 24 female as against 12 male have committed suicide.State principal secretary (education) Kumud Bansal, speaking at a seminar yesterday organised by SVT College of Home Science disclosed that the state government has drafted a pamphlet `Sankalp 98' suggesting measures to ensure greater participation for girl students. Like making a girl student class monitor, involving her along with her male counterpart in leading the organisation of any school functions or class decoration etc. For school picnics, laboratory experiments, competition and cultural activities, participation from the girls should be same as the boys, says Sankalp.
