Education is the powerful sword which can conquer any obstacle.Women can change the face of the world , if given the major opportunities of education and other human rights.

1. Enhancing Women
Education in India:A step
Towards Equality
Gayathri Byloppilly
Shreya Arora
Jyotshna
Diksha Soni
(Students)
Shyama Prasad Mukherji College, Delhi University

2. Contents
1.Introduction
2.Abstract
3.Research methods
4. Government schemes
5.Findings and interpretation
6.Conclusion
7.References

3. Introduction
•Women empowerment is not a new concept and its need was sensed much earlier, even before
independence. Not only in India but all over the world women have faced atrocities and thus since the
beginning of its history they have been challenging gender inequalities. The struggles for women
empowerment have also been supported by many men who have been outraged at injustice against
women in society.
•The renowned Swami Vivekananda quoted, “There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the
condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wingAccordingly,
empowerment is central to the processes of maintaining the benefits of women at an individual,
household, community and broader levels . It involves the action of boosting the status of women
through literacy, education, training and raising awareness .Hence, women’s empowerment is all about
allowing and equipping women to make life-determining choices across different issues in the country .In
India, women have always been a victim of honour killings. They have been bereft of basic rights for
proper education and freedom for years. In this male-dominated and patriarchal society, they face
violence, abuse and other ill-treatment. The irony is that although India has acclaimed the status of the
1st Asian country to accomplish its Mars mission in the maiden attempt is positioned at the 29th rank in
the world on the basis of gender inequality index. Although women in India have made a considerable
progress in the seven-decade of Independence still the battle is only half won.
•They still have to fight against many social evils that are oppressing them and deteriorating their status.
Still, there are people or groups that create hurdles and resists women progress in India.

4. ABSTRACT
Education is considered as the only tool for the sustainable development of every society. Women are
also a big part of the society. In India, women education has become a major milestone for their
empowerment as educated women can also play a very important role inside as well as outside at the
development of country. Women’s education is an educational initiative that has been embraced by our
country. Today our nation is empowering women more and more to access quality education because
women and girls’ education is essential not only to promoting gender equality but also to addressing the
full spectrum of 21st century challenges. Since its Independence, India has been developing women
education by implementing new policies, programs, schemes and recommendations in favor of them for
having access quality education. Women have also been improving their education but it is not sufficient
for the needs of the nation and not as equal as men developing. But, in spites of having such new policies
and programs, women of our country remain far behind from men in the field of education. This paper is
conducted by meta analysis of various studies , observation and by the method of literature reviews
following a variety of recently published articles, researches, data related to education, Government
reports, women’s rights and gender inequality to finding out a number of common challenges, issues,
problems and barriers which are preventing women in accessing quality education. This paper also
highlights some very simple and unique strategies, methods, techniques and solutions to provide quality
education for women as an indicator of effective human rights.

5. Research Methodology
Review of Literature
Article 1
• M. SUGUNA**Ph.D Research Scholar, Department Of Commerce, Periyar
University, Salem -636011, Tamilnadu.
• Women education in India has also been a major preoccupation of both the
government and civil society as educated women can play a very important role
in the development of the country. Education is milestone of women
empowerment because it enables them to responds to the challenges, to
confront their traditional role and change their life. So that we can’t neglect the
importance of education in reference to women empowerment India is poised to
becoming superpower, a developed country by 2020. The growth of women’s
education in rural areas is very slow. This obviously means that still large
womenfolk of our country are illiterate, the weak, backward and exploited.”
Education of women in the education of women is the most powerful tool of
change of position in society. Education also brings a reduction in inequalities
and functions as a means of improving their status within the family.

6. Article 2
Women often express conflicting feelings about their wish to enter the labor force
and the fears they hold about the consequences their employment may have in
their marriage and for their children. As the number of roles increases (from worker
to wife and worker to mother and wife and worker), a woman feels increasing role
conflicts.
Three psychological factors that inhibit women's occupational aspirations
have been identified by DiSabatino (1976).
These are 1)sex role conflicts, 2)poor self-esteem, and 3)fear of failure.
The psychological literature shows that, in general, females have a poorer self-
concept than males and that females of lower socioeconomic status may have
poorer self-concept than middle class females. Thus, women are likely to have
more doubts than men about their ability to compete in the work force successfully.
Mendelssohn (1979), This finding and my own research with re-entry(Ekstrom,
Baler, Davis and Gruenberg, In press) shows that although homemakers have
many skills they view themselves as having fewer skills than women in the labor
force. The other significant difference between Mendelsohn's four groups was that
women now working who plan to continue rate need for money more highly than
women who are not now working but who plan to return to work.

7. Article 3
H. Subrahmanyam (2011) looks at women education in India at present and Past.
Author highlighted that there has a decent advance in general enrolment of young
women understudies in schools. The term engage intends to give legitimate power
or power to act. It is the way toward securing a few exercises of women.
M. BhavaniSankaraRao (2011) highlighted that soundness of women individuals
from SHG have surely taken a swing to better Education is truly the key to
empower women and also provide for all round economic growth of countries.
Education is an essential means of empowering women with the knowledge, skills
and self-confidence necessary to fully participate in the development process .
Srivastava,(2014). Empowering the women means creating such an environment
in which they can take independent decisions for their personal development and
the development of society in general. Empowerment is the process by which the
women achieve increased control and participation in decision making which in
turn helps to achieve equal basis with men in various spheres – political,
economic, social, cultural and civil.

8. Article 4
Education helps to enable women to exercise their rights on equal footing with men
and participate in national development. “Education is the milestone of women
empowerment because it enables them to respond to the challenges, to confront their
traditional role and change their life.” The target of becoming superpower, a
developed country by 2020 will be achieved only when the women of India will be
empowered through education.
The National Policy of Education (1986) has emphasized the need of women
education for their effective participation in social and economic activities. The NPE,
1986 has stated, “Education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of
women.
The National Educational system will play a positive interventionist role in the
empowerment of women. “The National Policy of Empowerment of Women (1990) has
emphasized on education for–
1. Creating an environment to enable women to realize their full potential,
2. Providing all human rights and fundamental freedom to women on equal basis with
men,
3. Participation of women in decision-making in every spheres of life,
4. Equal access to health care, quality education, guidance, employment,
remuneration and
social security,
5. Elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girl
children.

9. Government schemes to encourage
woman education
1. Sakshar bharat mission for female literacy:
Launched in 2008 for promoting adult education especially among woman under
which Lok Shiksha Kendras were set up.
2. Right To Education
RTE considers education as a fundamental right which will provide free and
compulsory education to every child aged between 6 to 14.
3. Kasturba Balika Vidyalaya-
Establishment of residential upper primary schools for girl
4. National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level
It is for reduction in the school dropouts by giving special attention to weak girls. In
villages, women’s group are formed. These groups follow up/supervision on girl’s
enrollment, attendance.

10. Findings & Interpretation
1)According to the 2001 census data (Census Report, 2001), national literacy rate stands at 64.84%. The following are the
individual data percentages:
Male literacy was noted as 75.26%
Female literacy lags behind at 53.67%
A more recent government report on education statistics (2008), notes that the literacy rates for women in India has
steadily increased from 8.9% in 1951 to around 57% in 2004.
Although substantial progress has been achieved since India won its independence when less than 8% of females were
literate, the gains have not been rapid enough to keep pace with population growth.
The dropout rates and enrolment in higher education imply that getting girls to enroll in schools is the first hurdle, once
surmounted girls are more likely than boys to stay on for primary education, but pose a challenge again at the secondary
and higher level of education. Although it is well acknowledged that when you educate a woman you educate a nation,
this often-quoted maxim has somehow been lost in translation as the reality of women's education in India seems to
suggest.
2 )According to Duflo(2011) Women empowerment and economic development are closely related in one direction,
development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women in the other direction,
empowering women may benefit development. The study argues that the inter-relationships of the empowerment and
development are probably too weak to be self sustaining and that continuous policy commitment to equality for its own
sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women as even today small numbers of women work and
for the same work they earn less than men.

11. As per the provisional figures of Census 2011, in India 77,84,54,120 persons have been counted as literates. Among all
literates, 33,42,50,358 are females, whereas 44,42,03,762 are males.
 The literacy rate of India in 2011 is 74.0 per cent.
 Literacy rate among females is 65.5 per cent.
 literacy rate among males is 82.1 per cent
YEAR LITERATE RATE GAP IN
LITERAC
Y
PERSON MALE FEMALE
2001 64.8 75.3 53.7 21.6
2006 70.2 73.6 62.2 11.4
2011 74.1 82.1 65.5 16.6
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

12. Being literate or having only primary education is not enough to enhance
productivity or to obtain better-paying jobs. A recent study found that in India
the wage benefits for women with secondary education was double than that
for men. This result is consistent with studies in other countries.( Table 2)
highlights the number of girls enrolled in primary, middle and secondary
education in India.
YEAR PRIMARY (1-4) UPPER
PRIMARY(5-8)
SECODARY(9-
10)
2000-01 78 69 63
2006-07 88 82 73
2008-09 91 84 77
2009-10 92 88 82
2010-11 92 89 82
2012-13(p) 94 95 89
2013-14(p) 93 95 90

13. 3)International Convention in all forms of Discrimination against Women (ICDAW)
in 1993 mentioned that education is one of the most important means of
empowering women with knowledge, skills and self-confidence, necessary to
participate fully in the development process. Educating women benefit the whole
society.
India is 3rd in enrolment in the world. In term of GER(Gross Enrollment Ratio )
India is 6th in the world as per 2014 as shown in figure 1

14. Percentage of women institutes in India is 10.17 in the year 2011-12. It increases to
10.72 in the year 2015-16 as shown in figure 2.
• FIGURE 2

15. ,

17. Women education is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. No single factor
or cause can be held sole responsible for very low literacy rate of women
in India. Subsequently it is associated with combination of many factors
including social, economic, political, religious, cultural, educational,
demographical, and administrative and so on.

18. Gender gap narrows in higher education
enrolment:
AISHE report
Gender gap has been narrowing significantly
in India in
higher education with Uttar Pradesh for the
first time registering more
female enrolment, according to All India
Survey on Higher Education
(AISHE) for 2018-19 released by the HRD
ministry on Saturday.
A year ago, there were 1.61 lakh more males
than females in colleges and
universities of UP. Today, there are a little
over 90,000 more girls than
males enrolled for higher education in the
state, says the AISHE report. In
Karnataka too, the number of females is
marginally higher (1,600) than
males. The general trend itself indicates the
narrowing of the gender gap
with female enrolment improving from
47.6% in 2017-18 to 48.6% in 2018-
19, says the survey..

19. Conclusion
One may ask why education of women is even important, or why the state ought to focus on it,
beyond improving the numbers and statistics to reflect figures at par with the rest of the
developed world. Is it a mere image building exercise in an attempt to stay on top of the
numbers? Although that may be equally important, there are more to accrue for the individual,
family unit and ultimately the nation, with investment in education of its women. Neglecting the
education of women, who constitute nearly half of the population, does not auger well for the
development of any nation. Beyond the obvious imbalance in the labour pool, education for
women is an important determinant of their enhanced self-esteem and self-confidence, helping
to build a positive image, developing their ability to think critically, fostering better decision
making and helping them make more informed choices about health, employment and even the
education of their children. Education will not only ensure more participation in developmental
processes but also enhance awareness of rights and entitlements in society, so that women can
enhance their participation in society on an equal footing with men.

20. REFERENCES:
1. Government of India, Census of India, 2001
2. Government of India, Census of India, 2011
Duflo.(2011).Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development.NEBR
Working Paper No. 17702
3. Suguna (2011) ―Education And Women Empowerment In India‖ Zenith
International Journal Of Multidisciplinary Research Vol.1 Issue 8,
December 2011, ISSN 2231 5780.
4. Sharma and Afroz(2014) ―Women Empowerment Through Higher
Education‖ International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary
Studies (IJIMS), Vol 1, No.5, 18-22