Ram Rattan Sharma
Apart from other things this century will be known for the movements and consolidation of the agenda of human rights and democracy. Ever since the end of second world war, promoting the respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms everywhere in the world had been a major concern of the international community. The concept of human rights is multifaceted. It involves liberty, all aspects of freedom and above all to live a life as human being, equality is the corner stone of every society which aspires for dignified life of human beings, democracy, social justice and human rights. But for centuries virtually in all societies women had remained the equal in theory and practice, particularly in all spheres of life. On going efforts by the united nations to document the real situation of women world wide have produced some alarming statistics on the economic and social gaps between men and women of 1.3 billion people living in poverty 70% are women. The increasing poverty among women has been directly linked to their unequal situation in the labour market, their treatment under social welfare systems and their status and power in the family. Women are the majority of the world’s illiterate world wide, women work more hours than men and mostly their work remain unpaid, unrecognized and under valued. Women hold between 10% & 20% of managerial and administrative jobs world wide and less than 20% of jobs in manufacturing. They receive a disproportionately small shares of credit from formal banking institutions. The participation of women in economic and political decision making remains very limited, women occupy only 10% of parliamentary seats and make up less than 5% of the world’s heads of states. The starkest reflection of the low status accorded to women is the discrimination against them in the law. In many countries treatment accorded to women, whether in terms of property rights, rights of inheritance, laws related to marriage and divorce or rights to acquire nationality, manage property or seek employment, reflects the in equality between men and women.
In India, for centuries women have been treated as occupying secondary positions to men. The framers of the constitution of India tried to give proper place to the women in the social structure of the country. The fact of the situation is that in general women are disproportionately affected by poverty and social marginalization and systematic discrimination against women result in deep patterns of inequality and disadvantage. Women frequently experience discrimination. It cannot be denied that the basic element of empowerment is education, if there is massive investment in human development. As far as girls are concerned, education is a life line of their future. Education changes a women’s life for ever. It is her surest route to a healthier and better life. An educated woman has skills and self confidence. Importance of education to enable women to have greater control over their lives is now well recognized. Also there is wide consensus that education and training for girls and women, in particular provides high social and economic returns and is a precondition for the empowerment of women. Educated women tend to make more independent decisions and standup for themselves. In India, to begin with education planning was essentially gender blind-despite the introduction of special incentives and schemes to promote girls education.
Higher education for women in India has not been given that serious attention as it deserves, while there is substantial increase in women’s enrollment at primary level it remains low at secondary and higher level when compared with those of boys. It is no surprise that the census evidence shows that there are marginal changes in the employment of women by economic sectors. Even these marginal changes suggest that women when compared to men are lumped into low paying or unpaid work. It is also found that unemployment and under employment are higher amongst women compared to men. The trend of increase in the incidence of open the employment is stronger in the case of women than men. Various causes for lack of higher education in women are by now well known parental attitudes, gender differentiated expectations for future income, female’s labour and house hold responsibilities on absence of role models at home and in school, explicit and implicit discouragement for pursuing particular courses of study, parents level of education, family, religious and moral precepts and more.
What is, therefore, required is an approach that simultaneously help women’s full access to higher education in science and technology in a socially more acceptable ways as also is aimed at raising and promoting awareness of the rights of women as human rights. In this open and distance learning universities have a very significant role to play. Programmes of open education had proved successful, especially in remote rural areas or for certain populations such as ethnic minorities or nomadic groups. The open university system is particularly suitable for women in view of their high presence in flexible time scheme and works in which they are presently engaged. Another important aspects of open universities particularly helpful to women’s is open admission policy enabling anyone to register without restrictions to minimum entry qualifications or percent age of marks. The economic aspect of open learning and distance education is obvious. In the regular system education costs money even when provided free. The importance of open universities in educating the girls, one of the highest unreached group, thus can not be denied. In order to enhance the employ ability of women, vocational qualifications particularly in the field of information technology are of great importance, otherwise women would continue to face constraints and unequal opportunities open universities should take special measures to encourage women and girls to enter new fields of study by making them easily accessible and flexible. Distance mode of education with its in built flexibility availability of technology and new methods of teaching and capacity to reach distances can perform this task better than any other system.
(The author is former Dy. Librarian, University of Jammu and a Social Activists)
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