The Bihar government is arranging facilities to provide higher secondary education to all girls as “educating girls is the best way to stabilise population”, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said.

“We have found that educating girls is the best way to stabilise the population. Data reveals that the average fertility rate of girls educated till class 10 in the country is 2 and it was the same in Bihar also. The fertility rate drops to 1.7 if the girl is educated till class 12, but in Bihar it was 1.6, which is better than the national average,” Kumar said.

“While seeing the data related to the fertility rate of educated girls, we have decided to open ‘plus two’ (higher secondary) schools in all village panchayats and we are working on a five-year target to complete it. If all girls in Bihar study till class 12, the fertility rate will go down,” he added.

The Chief Minister was speaking at a workshop on ‘Health, Women and Development’ organised in the state capital by the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) and the Population Foundation of India (PFI).

Kumar pointed out that the fertility rate of Bihar is 3.9 in comparison to 2.4 at the all-India level. The population is increasing by 25 per cent every 10 years. It must be stabilised as the area of land would not increase.

“I emphasise on education of girls because it will not only help stabilise population but will also help check child marriage, female foeticide, and improve the sex ratio,” he added.

The Chief Minister termed the adverse sex ratio as a “big problem” and said if it continued then men would not be able to get married, as was the case in Haryana, and many problems would erupt in the society.

“It will lead to violence, atrocities on women, moral corruption, and many other things. There is a dire need to correct the adverse sex ratio. Society will be destroyed if we do not pay attention to it,” he added.

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