A Study on the Impact of Education In Women Empowerment

The reality of women’s lives remains invisible to men and women alike and this invisibility persist at all levels beginning with the family to the nation. The mere fact that “women hold up half the sky” does not appear to give them a position of dignity and equality. True, that over the years women have made great strides to many areas with notable progress in reducing some gender gaps. Yet “afflicted world in which we live is characterized by deeply unequal sharing of the burden of adversities between women and men”. Although efforts have been made to improve the status of the women, the constitutional dream of gender equality is miles away from becoming a reality. Even today “the mainstream remains very much the male stream.” The dominate tendency has always being to confine women and women’s issues in the private domain. The National Crime Records Bureau “crime in India-2002” predicted that growth rate of crime against women would be higher than the population growth rate by 2012. The Indian Government has expressed a strong commitment towards education and stated in its constitution with an article promising “free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen (World Bank 1997 b) and RTE act was implemented in the year 2012. Education is an instrument of social and economic change and it should be reoriented to enable women to take to the path of progress and reformation. Education, Lenin said “is a long and difficult matter. It is a long matter because such a complicated task as changing the human psychology cannot we done in a rush, right away it is a difficult matter because in the process of education the new men or women numerous survivals of the past have to be overcome”. Emphasizing the general education of women, Archer said “without female education progress can be transmitted to each generation either not at all or very slowly. This may seem exaggerated and over-emphatic, but the case cannot be made too strongly”. UNESCO realizes the overwhelming importance of basis education for women as well as men. Without this, the world of tomorrow will be over populated and will suffer more poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy than ever before. Explaining the importance of general education Mehta remarks “education is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Studies must be directed toward getting a good training that has some potential”. Khanna and Varghes have explained as “history has established beyond doubt that education forms a basis for the development of the human society”. However, development of women education can be studied in two phases, in pre-independence period and post-independence period.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

According to Runcimam “class, status and power are the manifestation of economic, social and political inequalities. Dubey (1975), said that the “inequalities in case of class indicates the economic inequalities, i.e. lower, middle and upper classes. Inequalities of status in terms of class expresses the difference in the living standard, in the style of life according to the higher or lower status or according higher or lower class. This situation is particularly being creative by occupational mobility. This occupational mobility is the result of higher education. Higher education among women has so far being confined to higher castes. Among the lower castes it has not gained much significant”. India is a multifaceted and extremely hierarchical society where no generalization could apply to all the nation’s various regional, religious, social and economic groups. Dubey and Palriwala(1990) “women are expected to be chaste and especially modest in all actions which may constrain their ability to perform in the workplace on an equal basis with men. Cultural rules such as purdah place some Indian women in paradoxical situation, even when family suffer economically. Women participation in employment outside the home is viewed as slightly Maria Mies (1980), states that there has been no structural or quantitative change in the conditions of educated Indian women. In other words, if education has to help in realizing the goals, the educational system must change structurally, quantitatively and methodologically. Education of women has achieved significance progress but this has not helped to change the attitude or values of men and women in the direction of real equality. Women’s position has worsened considerably in every sphere with the exception of some gains for middle class women in terms of education and employment. They are the more visible section of the society and their advancement generated a myth that unlike some of the Asian Societies, women’s status in India is very good and is able to perform their dual roles adequately and they get considerable support from their men. The constitution of India also provides equality to women. Thus, the myth was not only entrenched but it developed a complacency and acquiescence among women.

Education is the best means to elevate the status of an individual in the existing social system. Higher the education, greater the chances of employability. The same may hold true in case of women .Women, which are educated may be contributing more to the economic structure of the family. As a result, social status of the women also changes. Further, the women being educated develop awareness about the equality and would reject submitting to the norms of subjugation. Perhaps it is this equality principle which enables the Indian parliament to bring the women reservation bill. It is in this context that various questions have been raised and need to be answered on empirical basis. It is in this context that the present study has been planned.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The following are the objectives of the present study to find out the answers to the following questions. 1. To what extent the women are conscious about their socio-economic status? 2. To what extent the working women have developed the sense of independence in comparison to house wives? 3. How far the functions of women have changed in the family on being educated?

The present study is about the impact of education on improving social and economic status of women in entire population. In the study the focus is about the impact of education on improving social and economic status of women in Haryana. The study will be conducted qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Quantitative part will pertain to collecting data from various sources about the social and economic status of women. To assess the impact of education on women, different sets of quantitative data will be gathered. To get a deep insight into the impact of education some case studies will be conducted. Both survey as well as case study methods will be followed to explain the phenomenon of social and economic status. In any survey of research, covering the entire population is practically an impossible task. What is feasible and generally practiced is to study a sample representative of the population under study. Out of twenty three districts in Haryana, two purposively selected. These districts namely Kurukshtra and Kaithal are selected purposively. The study will be conducted at quantitative as well as qualitative levels; multiple sampling processes will be followed. Sample will be taken both women and men. The sample of women will be selected from various strata namely educated and uneducated, working and non- working .The process of sampling is purposive i.e. purposefully 200 educated and 200 uneducated women will be selected from each district.

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