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Pupils in India, girls from lower-income rural areas in particular, are using bicycles to open up access to education for themselves, as Business Standard reports. This is the positive key finding of a new study published in the Journal of Transport Geography entitled “A silent revolution: Rapid rise of cycling to school in rural India.”
The study’s three researchers, Srishti Agrawal, Adit Seth, and Rahul Goel, from Delhi’s Indian Institute of Technology, and Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, analysed transport modes for schoolchildren aged 5-17. They did this by examining a nationwide education survey in the decade between 2007 and 2017.
At the same time, this study assessed the effectiveness of state-run schemes that provide free bicycles to students, testing their impact on the cycling rate.
The researchers are in no doubt as to the overall benefits of cycling to school. As they explain in the study’s abstract, “Cycling to school improves access to education for children, provides them physical activity benefits, and gives them independence in mobility.”
Why is cycling to school a “silent revolution?”
The study highlights a notable rise in cycling among rural girls especially, which jumped from 4.5 percent in 2007 to 11 percent in 2017. This is seen as so meaningful, because it is these girls that are most vulnerable to a gender gap in terms of access to education.
Traditionally, Indian girls growing up in less educated families in poorer states, hail from a society which doesn't prioritize schooling its girls. Typically, It is girls who have higher school dropout rates than boys. This is due to household chores, as well as the exhausting long walks to the schools nearest to them.
“This is a silent revolution. We call it a revolution because cycling levels increased among girls in a country which has high levels of gender inequality in terms of female mobility outside the home, in general, and for cycling, in particular,” says Ms Agrawal, as quoted by the BBC
The researchers found that India’s cycling revolution is manifested the most in villages, with states like Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, and Chhattisgarh leading the growth. These states have populations equal to some of the largest European countries.
Bicycle distribution schemes save the day!
Besides gender norms, distance to school, and road safety challenges, the high price of bicycles is a key determinant of bicycle use.
This is why the researchers emphasize their parallel focus on existing bicycle distribution schemes (BDS) which have been established in several states in India. The authors hail these as contributing to the growth in cycling among rural girls.
Such programs see schoolchildren provided with free bicycles courtesy of the government, with rural children, typically enrolled in state rather than private schools, entitled to access them.
The study found that nationally, due to these schemes, cycling to school levels increased from 6.6 percent to 11.2 percent between 2007 and 2017. These levels nearly doubled in rural India (6.3 percent to 12.3 percent among male and female schoolchildren combined,) with the largest increase seen among girls in rural areas.
“We found strong evidence of the positive impact of bicycle distribution schemes on cycling levels. Overall, cycling levels increased by an average of 3.6 percentage points in states with BDS and by 0.8 percentage points without BDS. States with the largest growth in cycling levels were often the ones where BDS was implemented, particularly in rural areas,” reveals Goel, Assistant Professor, IIT-Delhi.
The link between bicycle access, independence, and women’s freedom has been highlighted through recent history, as well as by these Indian researchers. The BBC quotes American suffragist Susan B Anthony, who famously said that the bicycle “has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."
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