Igniting young minds: fostering aspirations among adolescents

As India continues to make economic and social strides, there is a growing need to foster the aspirations of adolescents, to help the country achieve its full potential.

India is predominantly a young country, and the optimal use of its demographic dividend—defined as the economic growth potential resulting from shifts in a population's age structure—depends on unleashing the full potential of the youth.

Young minds hold the key to shape the future of the country and the communities they belong to, thus setting in motion a chain of positive actions for collective growth. However, their journey is often marked by significant challenges, including gender-based discrimination and violence particularly against girls. These barriers often act as formidable challenges and consequently, stunt their growth, and that of the nation.

The aspirations of adolescents, particularly, girls and young women do not receive the necessary support they deserve from their families and communities given the gender norms in society. This often stops young women from participating in economic activities outside the home, to build a fulfilling career for themselves and confines them to traditional roles in the family, virtually closing the doors to a world outside of it.

Normalising everyday violence against them further exacerbates these challenges, significantly affecting their self-esteem and choices in life. Our experience in states such as Haryana, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh show that focused interventions towards building adequate awareness around restrictive gender norms and attitude change, can help address the barriers, paving the way for a better future for all.

In these states, following our interventions, we noticed a sharp rise in the career aspirations among adolescents, particularly girls. We also noticed a sharp rise in commitment by the parents to support these aspirations as we engaged with the families and the larger communities.

However, this was not the case when we started. Many adolescents could not fathom what to do after high school even if they managed to complete education up to 12th standard. Parents also did not dream about professional careers for girls. It was normative to only think in terms of marriage for a girl child.

However, as we observed, such focused interventions and coordinated efforts to foster aspirations of young girls and boys and rally the larger society around their dreams, can add wind beneath the wing of the country’s economic dream. It can bring about an overall behavioural change both at an individual and community level, to transformation in the prevailing norms and lay the foundation for a more inclusive and equitable society.

Despite the deep entrenched challenges, in the areas we intervene in today there is greater awareness among parents and students. The aspirations of young adolescents, as a result, are rising and are becoming gender non-normative. During one of our evaluations, we found that the aspirations predominantly centered around careers in fields such as medicine, teaching, and law enforcement. But our interventions changed this primarily by way of creating more awareness about other existing career options.

As a result, the evaluation at the end of the first two years of intervention revealed a noteworthy change in adolescent aspirations. They are now expressing a strong interest in diverse professions, including those in scientific, nursing, and civil service domains. This fills us with hope!

Fostering the aspirations among adolescents to build an inclusive, equitable society

In many places across the globe, gender norms and stereotypes continue to stifle the aspirations and dreams of adolescents. These also restrict their choices and sense of individuality, while perpetuating cycles of stagnation in society.

Given the enormity of the challenges, it is important to take a multifaceted approach to foster aspirations of adolescents, more so in a society where gender-based norms prevail. To bring meaningful and sustainable change in such a context, a variety of strategies and initiatives must be considered and implemented at different levels of society, from the grassroots to the national level.

For example, within the school system, a gender-transformative curricula can promote gender equality and inclusivity, while teaching students the value of diversity and respect for all genders. At the same time gender training of teachers can bring positive changes in their own lives as well in the lives of their students as teachers are among the greatest role-models of adolescents. Interventions such as this can bring about lasting change over time and will prove to be critical enablers for building an aspirational generation of adolescents.

Educators need to actively engage in discussions about aspirations and dreams, offering support to adolescents in their pursuits. Additionally, parents and families, being fundamental sources of guidance, should be educated about the importance of nurturing their children's aspirations and supporting them and School Management Committee (SMC) meetings and Parent Teachers’ meetings (PTM).

Breaking down the barriers to build and nurture aspirations

Overall, the following will be instrumental in establishing an environment where adolescents can pursue their dreams inclusively and equitably:

Ensuring longer years of education for girls: There needs to be focused investment in ensuring more years in school and transition to college education, particularly for girls. This would give adolescents and young adults the time required to dream their dreams and chart a route to fulfil them. Access to better educational infrastructure including that related to STEM, scholarships, a gender transformative curriculum, and access to life skills programs will significantly improve the career outcomes for adolescents and young adults.

Parental support around adolescents’ aspiration:  Infrastructural challenges are a reality in a country like India and thus the parents play an even more critical role in nurturing the aspirations of their children. Parents can firmly stand behind their children’s aspirations, knowing that they build not only their own future but the future of the country. This would further motivate the adolescents to pursue their aspirations fearlessly even if these take them to geographically far locations. 

Community engagement: Communities need to be actively engaged in promoting gender equity. The larger community's support is crucial. In our experience wherever the village elders and locally elected leaders have come together in support of the adolescent's mobility and safe passage to educational institutions, all girls of the village have benefitted immensely. 

Programmes that promote attitude and behaviour change: It is important to create awareness about the detrimental effects of gender-based discrimination and violence to bring about a behavioural change. This would go a long way to make a career, a possibility for girls and women.

To conclude, a collaborative effort among the society, government, and civil society organisations is critical for breaking down the barriers and fostering the aspirations in the young minds. Regular and focused dialogues between policymakers, educators, non-profits, parents, and communities would further be able to address the deep-rooted issues such as regressive gender norms that lead to violence and discrimination. These would go a long way in helping India’s adolescents reach their fullest potential and the country scaling new heights.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)