Rajasthan schoolbook covers to highlight importance of girlchild

Jaipur, July 23 (UNI) Rajasthan, a state which tops the list of female foeticide cases, will soon print school text books' back covers with social messages highlighting the importance of girl child.

At least 47 titles of school text books ranging from class I to VIII will feature females like tennis ace Sania Mirza, astronaut Kalpana Chawla, mountaineer Bachendri Pal, police officer Kiran Bedi and Mother Teresa, who have made a name for themselves and made their parents and country proud.

Rajasthan State Pataye Pustak Mandal Secretary Hansa Singh Dev told UNI ''The new text book covers, which will be available from 2008, will also give a brief detail of the personality and feature an attractive photograph to make students read and understand that girls are neither a burden for the parents nor inferior to males in anyway.'' Sania will feature in class VIII's Health and Physical Education book while the photograph of Mother Teresa will be placed on class VII's Science book cover.

Ms Dev added that important social messages like the right age of marriage and 'small family happy family' were also being printed to create awareness among the young students.

The project took off after a pilot project highlighting the right age of marriage, printed in Class I copies, found good response and created awareness among the children.

''Now each page of government school copies will also be printed with social and educative messages in an attractive form to catch the attention of the students,'' mentioned Ms Dev.

UNI