How education for women would enhance development?

The issue of gender equality got the rightful place in the Human Rights towards the fulfillment of “freedom, justice and peace in the world” and the United Nations Organization proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to ensure and promote respects for Human Rights (Subramanian, 1997). This resulted in giving equal importance to the education of female child with a global expectation of developing the quality of life of the mankind. The developments that would be enhanced by the education for women would be explicitly discussed in the subsequent paragraphs.

Education for the women should be of quality and larger extent that it can produce satisfactory developments. This is because Jeffery and Basu understood that only a primary schooling was inadequate in South Asia,  “with marginal effect not appearing until women have experienced secondary schooling” (1996, p. 15). With women given more schooling, the fertility rate decreased. This effect even came to the Muslims though their religion stringently forbids sterilization. There also appeared great effects in lowering maternal and infant mortality rates. Such effects would regulate the population and improve the overall living standard.

Educated mother is not confined in a family life. Summers expounded:

An educated mother faces a higher opportunity cost of time spent caring for the children. She has greater value outside the house and thus has an entirely different set of choices than she would have without education. She is married at a larger age and is better able to influence family decisions. She has fewer, healthier children and can insist on the development of all of them, ensuring that her daughters makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls, as well as boys, will be educated and healthy as well. The vicious cycle is thus transformed into a virtuous circle (1996, p. 17).

Summers expounded the enhancement on development of conscious decision making, social relation, overall standard of family and quality of life due to the education in women. The educated women can save expenditures on tuition fees as they could school and guide the children of their own (Jeffery, P. & Jeffery, R., 1996, p. 152). It would contribute to human capital which would then add to productivity of a person in economic activities (UN ESCAP, 1992, p. 51). These kinds of aforementioned effects will continue increasing as generations come owing to the education for women.

Bhutanese women, after enrolling in Nunneries and getting educated, provide communities with physical and psychological support and also preserve and develop the culture.

Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R. concluded that:

Women have great difficulty when they attempt to influence key aspects of their situations. The prime reasons have to do with structural powerlessness: they have no independent earning power nor do they own any productive property (1996, p. 179).

Now with provision of education, which benefits both the quality of life and person’s economic productivity, women have obtained equal access to economic activities as men to make earnings and raise own productive property. Thus, structural powerless mentioned above would be eliminated and this would directly enhance to influence the key aspects of their situations.

Bhattacharya observed that in the most economies where huge part of national income accounts to subsistence sector, women were involved in those subsistence activities (UN ESCAP, 1992, p. 56). Education for these women would contribute instantly to personal wellbeing and ultimately to the accruement of national income because the labour-wage differentials which, as Banerjee found, was due to inferior educational qualifications of women compared to that of men would be quelled and deserved wages can be earned (UN ESCAP, 1992, p. 70).

Women of today compete on almost equal terms with the men in the job market. This became possible virtually due to equal share of educational opportunities with respect to gender equality. The deficiency in educational opportunities on the part of women would, as Banerjee claimed, undermine that positive change which is gaining stable root today (1992, p. 32).

Today women are in various tiers of politics: working, discussing, planning and enhancing the development of the nations. Provincial and regional assemblies are the highest tier of sub-national government, and out of the countries in the Asia Pacific with this level of representation, Afghanistan (30 percent), Australia (27.8 percent), India (37 percent), New Zealand (29.4 percent) and Viet Nam (23.88 percent) have the highest levels of women's representation. At the national level, women representation has made slight progress since commitments were made by most governments at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 to achieve an international target of 30 percent (India has 37 percent of women's representation in Aisa-Pacific goverments, 2011). The commitments made by the governments alone underline the need of women in politics at the national level not just by the Human Right but even by the right of their qualities and potential. Frank Newport studied women from 18 – 85 were more Democratic than men of same age range (Newport, 2009). With education, the potentials and qualities of women are edified and intensified for the greater purpose of development of the country.

Education for women alone is virtually ineffective in enhancing development. Women of Jats and Sheikhs, be educated or not, were not allowed to choose spouses of their own. Every decision is at disposal of parents, and once done, it is final and binding. These kinds of constraints even destructively affected the educated women from enhancing a merest development at homes. Anyway, enforcement of Human Rights and laws introduced to protect and promote it, like Constitution of Bhutan, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Constitution of Republic of India, strive towards successfully accomplishing the objectives of Human Rights. These constraints would then rapidly and absolutely cease to exist and meager enhancement to development due to education for women would heighten to bountiful developments. 

Before, there were women migrating to urban areas but just to join their husbands. Since 1975, there appeared women migrating singly to urban areas for economic reasons with the trend becoming more prominent in South East Asian countries than in South Asian countries (Banerjee, 1992, p. 66). With admirable educational qualification and without traditional limitations, Japanese women appeared to move freely to new occupation.

The education for women in itself is a development. Even the utmost traditional limitation cannot prevent from experiencing the effect of education of women. The developments enhanced by education for women would be not just in the income, but in almost all tangible and intangible aspects of the world and life. Today, the enhancements on developments are not appreciable owing to existing traditional barriers. These barriers are disappearing at a pleasing rate, and this is ensuring huge enhancements on developments in the world from women provided with equal educational opportunities in the very near future.

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