Female Education Essay

Napoleon once said â€Å"Give me an educated mother and I will give you an educated nation. † This statement is enough to prove the importance of female education. Allah has created both man and woman equally. They are like the two sides of a coin. One is incomplete without the other. So, education cannot be the only possession of a single class or sex. Rather, it should be imparted equally to both men and women. Our religion has also made education compulsory for all. In the past, our women folk were confined within the four walls of home. Parents did not allow them to receive education and to participate in any outside work. Early marriage, religious misinterpretation and the narrowness of our outlook were mainly responsible for this. Parents thought it waste of time and money to educate their girls. They did not understand that if girl children were educated they could be as competent as male children. As our women folk constitute almost half of our total population, no real development is possible keeping them uneducated. On the other hand, an educated mother plays a very important role in making and shaping the character of her children. She knows well how to bring up her children, to educate them and to make them worthy. In domestic life, she can also extend her helping hand to her husband. So, there is no alternative to female education. It is a matter of great delight that women have started to come out of their cocoons. Being educated, they are joining a wide range of professions. They have been able to prove their abilities. So, the disadvantages of early marriage and religious misinterpretation must be removed. Our outlook about women must be changed. More schools and colleges for girls should be set up to spread female education. Recently the scenario of female education has started to change. Many socio-economic factors are responsible for this change. All possible facilities of female education have been extended. Education for girls up to degree level has been made free with a monthly stipend. This encourages them to continue their education. We should remember that only educated women can change the picture of our society. So, all of us should come forward to spread female education. The overall state of female education in Bangladesh is not yet satisfactory. In the past, women were in the boundary of their houses. They usually spent their time doing their household chores. They were deprived of education. But the situation has been changed now. Now-a-days, they are admitting into schools, colleges and universities. The rate of literacy in our country is about 60% whereas female literacy is about 40%. Female education is necessary for getting an educated nation. Because, an educated mother can give an educated nation. There are many advantages of female education. A child will never remain illiterate if his/her mother is educated. An educated woman can play various roles in the family. She can impart himself in different business and jobs. As a result, she can contribute to the family income. However, government should do something more to educate the female. â€Å"No need girl’s education, they are born only for taking care of their families†- this idea was stereotype in the early past of Bangladesh. The birth of a boy child was a blessing for the parents and a girl child was like a curse. It is a surprising matter that a girl child also comes like a boy child from mother’s womb and father’s blood but still that child is unexpected to her parents. In reality, a father and mother can never hate their children. Actually, the society made the rule to neglect the girl children. As Bangladesh is considers as a Muslim country, most of its population are Muslim. The Bangladeshi people thought that their religion had ordered them to keep their women and female children inside the house and keep them in safe. As a result, the parents always wanted a male child to earn for the family and protect their old age. From a theological research, it has found that the beliefs which were followed by our ancestors were based on wrong concepts. The holy books actually suggested keeping women in safe, not to confine them into four walls where they do not have any liberty. These books also suggested that a woman can even participate in the warfare if she is able to protect herself. Very slowly but the people started to change their mentality when they were becoming educated and started realizing that it was useless to achieve success without women as a mother is the first teacher of a child. If a mother is illiterate there is much possibility that the child will be uneducated. To cure this problem, Begum Rokeya, the pioneer of giving the light of education to the Muslim Bengali girls. This social movement of educating girls was very slow and at that time people were against of this blessed work. She kept patience and opened a girls’ school. She made people to understand about the benefit of the girl’s education by giving the religious points. Though it took time to convince people, it worked. People understood the necessity of the girls’ education and started sending their daughters into the school. This idea was so effective because a nation can have more achievements if the entire nation works together for success, not the half of the nation. The government also realized that this is an innovative idea and so the†¦ â€Å"It is the height of selfishness for men, who fully appreciate in their own case the great advantage of a good education, to deny these advantages to women. There is no valid argument by which the exclusion of the female sex from the privilege of education can be defended. It is argued that women have their domestic duties to perform and that, if they were educated, they would bury themselves in their books and have little time for attending to the management of their households. Of course, it is possible for women as it is for men to neglect work in order to spare more time for reading sensational novels. But women are no more liable to this temptation than men and most women would be able to do their household work the entire better for being able to refresh their minds in the intervals of leisure with a little reading. Nay, education would even help them in the performance of the narrowest sphere of womanly duty. For education involves knowledge of the means by which health may be preserved and enable a mother to consult such modern books as will tell her how to rear up her children into healthy men and women and skillfully nurse them and her husband, when disease attacks her household. Without education she will not be averse to listen, with fatal results, to the advice of superstitious quacks that pretend to work wonder by charms and magic. But, according to higher conception of women’s sphere, women ought to be something more than a household drudge. She ought to be able not merely to nurse her husband in sickness but also to be his companion in health. For this part of her wifely duty, education is necessary, for there cannot be congenial companionship between an educated husband and an uneducated wife who can converse with her husband on no higher subject than cookery and servant’s wages. Also, one of a mother’s highest duties is the education of her children at the time when their mind is not amenable to instruction. A child’s whole future life, to a large extent, depends on the teaching it receives in early childhood and it is needless to say that this first foundation of education cannot be well laid by an ignorant mother. On all these grounds female education is a vital necessity. Gender inequality in education is extreme. Girls are less likely to access school, to remain in school or to achieve in education. Education helps men and women claim their rights and realise their potential in the economic, political and social arenas. It is also the single most powerful way to lift people out of poverty. Education plays a particularly important role as a foundation for girls’ development towards adult life. It should be an intrinsic part of any strategy to address the gender-based discrimination against women and girls that remains prevalent in many societies. The following links will further explain the necessity of girls’/women’s education. Education is a right Cultural changes Better health and awareness Poverty reduction Education is a right Everybody has the right to education, which has been recognised since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948. The right to free and compulsory primary education, without discrimination and of good quality, has been reaffirmed in all major international human rights conventions. Many of these same instruments encourage, but do not guarantee, post-primary education. These rights have been further elaborated to address issues like quality and equity, moving forward the issue of what the right to education means, and exploring how it can be achieved. As a minimum: states must ensure that basic education is available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable for all. (4A scheme) The right of girls to education is one of the most critical of all rights – because education plays an important role in enabling girls and women to secure other rights. Cultural changes Cultural and traditional values stand between girls and their prospects for education. The achievement of girls’ right to education can address some of societies’ deeply rooted inequalities, which condemn millions of girls to a life without quality education – and, therefore, also all too often to a life of missed opportunities. Improving educational opportunities for girls and women helps them to develop skills that allow them to make decisions and influence community change in key areas. One reason for denying girls and women their right to an education is rarely articulated by those in charge: that is their fear of the power that girls will have through education. There is still some resistance to the idea that girls and women can be trusted with education. Education is also seen in some societies as a fear of change and now with globalization, the fear becomes even greater- fear to lose the cultural identity, fear of moving towards the unknown or the unwanted, fear of dissolving in the many others. Better health Basic education provides girls and women with an understanding of basic health, nutrition and family planning, giving them choices and the power to decide over their own lives and bodies. Women’s education leads directly to better reproductive health, improved family health, economic growth, for the family and for society, as well as lower rates of child mortality and malnutrition. It is also key in the fight against the spread of HIV & AIDS. Poverty reduction Educating girls and women is an important step in overcoming poverty. Inequality and poverty are not inevitable. â€Å"The focus on poverty reduction enables the right to education to be a powerful tool in making a change in the lives of girls and women. Poverty has been universally affirmed as a key obstacle to the enjoyment of human rights, and it has a visible gender profile. The main reason for this is the fact that poverty results from violations of human rights, including the right to education, which disproportionately affect girls and women. Various grounds of discrimination combine, trapping girls in a vicious downward circle of denied rights. Denial of the right to education leads to exclusion from the labour market and marginalisation into the informal sector or unpaid work. This perpetuates and increases women’s poverty. † Education is one of the basic human rights. Every human being has the right to be enlightened by the light of knowledge. But like other issues of our society, a gender inequality exists in receiving education which is enacted to the females. This unwanted practice is continuing still in our society and hinders the progress of our nation. In our country, because of some old superstitions and customs, girls are deprived from many facilities which are cashed in on by males. Education is one of those. The parents think not to invest money to their female children rather than to the males. And that’s why; women of our country still can’t lead a solvent, secured, independent life. A woman without any education can’t use her skills and brain in a proper way. Because of educational ignorance, she can’t differentiate the right and wrong and take any decision correctly. She can’t use the chances to uplift her condition. She can’t nurse her family and children properly. In total, an uneducated woman leads a disorganized life. These awful facts affect the society decisively. Almost half of the population remains inoperative, unskilled, and slapdash. It lags behind the whole nation economically, academically, commercially which will suffer the future generation. If the women-folk is educated, they can utilize their skill, knowledge and work hand in hand with men in all programs of development. They can be self-employed and be a source of man power by which they can support their family financially. They can analysis any situation and take the right decision and influence her family and society in the key areas through their useful thoughts. They will be conscious about early marriage, family planning, maternal mortality rate, child mortality etc. Besides, if a woman is educated, she can take care of her children perfectly. A mother exercises an undeniable influence in the formation of children’s character and shaping their future destination. Once Napoleon said, â€Å"Give me†¦ [continues] Essay Introduction: The history of progress of the human race is the history of education. Hence it is necessary for every person, man or woman, to be educated. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Women should be educated like men; otherwise there can be no peace or no progress. If you yoke an unbroken (untrained) horse with highly trained one, the carriage will be dashed to pieces sand the occupants’ lives will be destroyed. The family peace cannot be preserved with such ill-matched life-long companions. Need for Female Education: Napoleon was once asked what the greatest need of France was. He answered â€Å"Motherland’s National progress is impossible without trained and educated mothers. † If the women in any country are not educated about half the people in that country will be ignorant. The result is that such a country will not be able to go along with other nations in development and progress. A Controversy: There is a great controversy going on in India whether women should receive higher education or not. Orthodox people are in favor of female education, but they are opposed to given them high education. But this view does not sound well. If women are mentally fit to receive higher education there seems to be no reason why they should not be allowed to develop their mental faculties. There is other group of liberal people which in favor of the female education. To give them only the rudiments of knowledge while they are eager for advanced studies is to condemn them to a place of inferiority. Duties of Woman: A woman has to play three distinct parts in the course of her life in each of which certain duties are expected of her. If she is able to do these well she is worthy of being called perfect woman. It is only by the help of education that she can hope to be able to do them satisfactorily. The first duty of a woman is to be a good daughter. The second is to be a good wife. And the third is to be a good mother. Education†¦ [continues] Male Female Education Different people have different ideas and opinions as to whether it is more important to educate boys or girls. Some believe that the education of boys is more important than that of the girls, and meanwhile others disagree. In reality, the choice depends on what country, culture, or society we are talking about. In many nations including many Asian countries, tradition demands that men provide the family with income, food, clothing, etc., and women perform the usual household business such as cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of children. In such societies it seems logical that there is more stress on the priority of men’s education rather than women, since it is the male that requires the needed education to succeed, survive, and thrive. It is perceived in these countries that education is not of vital importance to women since they â€Å"are not† supposed to work outside the house, and that their primary duty is to take care of the family and kids. However in modern societies and nations, the situation differs. Now days more countries are inclined towards modernization. The general moral philosophy of these nations is equality amongst men and women; therefore, this means equal business, industrial, and occupational opportunities for both the men and women. Based on these facts, it is vital to put of equal stress on the education of men and women for this will insure that females and males perform their tasks professionally and adequately. In my opinion, the edification of men and women has to be equally emphasized because today’s technological and economical advanced world require fully educated, experienced, and versatile citizens regardless of their gender. And this can be only achieved through sufficient education of both men and women. The importance of today’s society is to improve the reaction time interview tested techniques of the oriental and occidental countries and continents. [continues].