Ram Rattan Sharma
Women constitute an important human capital for enhancing economic strength of a nation. To quote Mahatma Gandhi, “Educate one man, you educate one person, but educate a woman and you educate a whole civilization”. As women constitute 48.46 percent of the total population of India, abridging gender disparities in higher education shall be a great aid in their empowerment. In ancient India all eligible disciples acquired knowledge without discrimination of gender or social status. The teaching of Vedas was the primary subject and Gargi and Maitreyi have been prominent women intellectuals of this period. The medieval period, however is characterized as the “dark age” for women in India as they were discriminated against and women education being confined to those of royal and rich blood having access to liberal education at homes. Education during the colonial period was more wide spread among men than women. Several land mark policies during the colonial rule including the MC Cauleys policy of 1835 and Wood’s education dispatch of 1854 besides opening up of first training college for women primary teachers in 1874 were instrumental in spread of female education at all levels. In 1946-47, there were 21479 primary schools, 2370 secondary schools, 59 colleges of arts and science and 4288 institutions for professional, technical and special education for girls and women.
After independence various commissions and committees set up in India advocated its need for gender parity in all the stages of education. Kothari commission and the national policy on education and the programme of Action in 1992 put enormous emphasis on promotion of gender equity in education by reducing the gender gap in access, retention and transition from one stage to other. The national policy on education stressed that education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of women. In order to neutralized the accumulated disadvantages of the past. There will be a well conceived edge in favour of women. The national policy for empowerment of women has been a remarkable achievement for women. The year 2001 was celebrated as women’s empowerment year, which recognized women as agents of socio-economic change and development in the country.
At the international level India has ratified various convention committing to secure equal rights of women. Women education and empowerment has been placed at the forefront of development programmes during the five year plans of India. The emphasis on education in various five year plans and policy documents has yielded perceptible results. The accessibility of women in higher education in India which was barely 10% in 1950-51, doubled to 20% by 1970-71. It increased to 40% by the end of Sept 2009. It is however seen that though accessibility of women in higher education has increased manifold since independence, their participation is below fifty percent at all stage of education. The results though encouraging are how ever not satisfactory when viewed in global context. Equity in tertiary education for women can also be viewed with respect to their choices of disciplines. It has been found that women seem to favour disciplines like arts, humanities, medicine and teacher’s education, so they have been viewed as feminine disciplines. The domain of Indian males is perceived to be in fields like commerce, law, engineering, so there are classified as masculine disciplines.
In an era of knowledge economy much needs to be done to push the greater lot of women towards achieving their dreams of attaining educational parity with not only men but also women of rest of the developed world. The Indian government needs to prioritize women education and enhance opportunities of access to higher education at the end of the senior secondary education especially in rural, remote and tribal areas. The need for higher education for women and in particular of rural, remote and tribal women, is indispensable. Women need to find their place with dignity at equal terms with that of women in the fiercely competitive social and economic world.
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