Rajasthan: Udaan Scheme

March 28, 2022

The ‘Udaan’ scheme of Rajasthan provides the rural girls of the state with scholarship schemes thus, allowing them to receive getting access to schooling

Overview:

The Udaan project has been launched in collaboration with ‘IPE Global’, a development consulting group.
Under this scheme focus is being given to the development of girls in the state.

Focus on keeping the girls in school

Through this programme attempts have been made to keep the girls of the state in school. This is being done by enrolling them at the secondary level. This scheme also ensures that out of all the enrolled students, the eligible ones receive their scholarships. This scheme not only generates awareness about the scholarship schemes but under this scheme rural communities have also been mobilized to provide support towards the girls’ education and help in facilitating their attendance.

Focus on preventing adolescent pregnancy

This scheme also seeks to reduce pregnancies during adolescence in Rajasthan. It is doing so by leveraging all the existing government programmes of the state across all the departments of health and education, for scaling them up and maintaining sustainability. Under this scheme, a multi-sectoral approach has been adopted to prevent pregnancy during adolescence, by generating awareness about sexual health and other such interventions.

Focus on in-school adolescent health education

Under this scheme ‘Human-Centred Design’ (HCD) approach was taken up to identify the various ways to reach out to adolescents effectively. In the Dholpur district, consultations were done with adolescents, parents, and other stakeholders. Through this, it was identified that to reach out to adolescents’ schools are the best place. To ensure utmost coverage, the adolescents in school can act as agents of change for out-of-school adolescents. Teachers should be taking the lead on improving attitude, knowledge, and practices.

These findings were adopted to conduct a limited pilot to test the adaptability and feasibility to deliver information related to Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH). As the results received through the pilot were positive the administration from 2020-21 approved scale-up across all the districts of the state covering 282 senior secondary and secondary schools.

Focus on improving contraceptive access

Focus is also given to prevent adolescent pregnancies in the state and to reduce the number of low birth weight babies born from teenage mothers. ‘Antara’, a contraceptive that helps in preventing pregnancy for three months period for all the women in Rajasthan’s 14 Mission Parivar Districts (MPV) has also been rolled out. Also, AntaraRaj, a web application that helps in tracking Antara uptake and reminder services has been developed by IPE Global. This web-based application has been implemented across all districts of Rajasthan. Sanitary pads are also being distributed under this scheme. Also, quality family planning services are also being provided.

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