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†¦ 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 atten ding 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. †