Prayagraj (UP), Dec 21 (IANS): In a welcome trend, there has been an increased inclination among the rural residents in Uttar Pradesh to educate their daughters.

The percentage of girls pursuing education, at least till high school, in the state is on a steady rise according to the data available with UP Board.

Officials of Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP), popularly referred to as the UP Board, said for the high school examination of 2023, a total of 31,16485 candidates have registered.

"Out of them, 14,18,462 (45.51 per cent) are girls. This is the highest count of female students registering for the exam in the last five years," said UP Board secretary Divyakant Shukla.

In the 2022-23 session, over 1.11 crore students took admissions into classes 9 to 12 in around 28,000 schools affiliated to the board across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Among them, 50,93,635 or 45.86 per cent were girls, he added.

The officials attributed the rise to the increasing awareness about the need for education among girl children.

Till about three decades ago, the number of girls in high schools was less than one-fourth of boys. The enrolment of girl students has more than doubled over the three decades, the records showed.

Out of 16,39,933 candidates registered for the high school board examination in 1993, only 3,63,574 (22.17 per cent) were girls.

In 2003, the figure improved to 30.60 per cent and then to 43.33 per cent in 2013.

Neena Srivastava, former secretary of the board, said, "Due to the initiative of the government and the board, more parents have started taking interest in sending their daughters to schools and the dropout rate has also come down."