Prof Hitesh Arora
“If you educate a man, you educate an individual however if you educate a woman, you educate a whole family. Women empowered means Mother India empowered.”
(Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru)
Educating women plays a vital and positive role in the development of a country as it ensures a sound foundation for a better quality of life at home as well as beyond home. Higher education empowers women by opening newer innumerable opportunities for them by equipping them with requisite knowledge and skills. This in turn gives them confidence and the ‘acquired” confidence provides them the desire and determination to know and exercise their rights as ‘a daughter, a wife, a mother, a sister an employee’ and above all as a woman. She becomes capable to take ‘informed’ and well-thought decisions on marriage, family size, health, and hygiene. A mother’s influence on child’s education and overall development is irrefutable. In fact, all parameters of growth and a happy society flow from empowered women. It has been proved to have a direct and positive impact on both economic indicators like employment, productivity GDP etc. and social indicators like population, health, hygiene etc. eventually leading to sustainable development.
In India, Raja Ram Mohan Roy started the movement of emancipation and resurgence of women. Mahatma Gandhi too involved women in India’s freedom struggle. The two great men were aware of the role that a woman can play in the society. Rabindranath Tagore delved on women-related issues in his writings to bring an awareness of the plight of women in India and the need for their empowerment. Even today, innumerable instances may be cited where girls have given up their education either because her brother’s education was considered more important or just because ‘she was a girl not to be educated beyond a point’. India has introduced numerous programmes since Independence to encourage higher education for women and has also achieved success to some extent in certain areas but, a lot still needs to be done. Encouraging women to pursue higher education is not to be taken as a tool for development. Rather, it is a statecraft that should be deliberate, planned, implemented by all with dedication and sincerity.
Higher education not only broadens the mind and but also provides the ability to ‘see’ things in the right perspective. A woman is empowered in the ‘true sense’ when she, equipped with the necessary skills provided by Higher Education, exercises her power to speak her mind and takes a stand irrespective of the consequences. For this, she needs to be self dependent and should have knowledge of ‘self worth’ in order to be her ‘own master’ rather than someone else controlling her life and decisions. Empowerment also gives a woman the ability to change age-old myths and wrong perceptions through her conviction power.
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