Women Education By Waseem Baloch Bhag Narhi Balochistan

We all must have heard the following quote that says;

“You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation”

Those nations who have accepted the truth beyond this quote have succeeded in making an ideal generation. Educated women play a very positive role in shaping their nation. Without their contribution the nation cannot flourish and perishes in its nourishing age. An illiterate woman can give birth to a child but does not know how to take care of her child’s health, behavior and most importantly education. But, in contrary, a literate woman is a good healthcare taker, character builder and an educator. No doubt she gives a healthy, patriotic, gallant, obedient, and an educated man or woman to the nation who becomes beneficial for the nation in future. Besides, an educated woman supports her family socially, politically as well as economically. The economic support of woman for her family results in elimination of poverty from the society and helps in the socio-economic development of country.

Education helps women in their personal lives as well. Women are typically divorced immediately after few years of their marriage and sometimes become widow. Their in-laws and relatives abandon and do not support them economically. So, they have to support themselves. In such circumstances, an

uneducated woman is unaccustomed of earning money. So, she has to persuade herself either to become a housemaid or sometimes prostitute because she doesn’t have other choices. But, an educated woman has many talents to utilize and earn money for her living. She can either get a government job or become employee in a Private company. Besides this, she can earn money online on electronic marketing in this digital era.

This is why, educating women is essential for society. But, unfortunately, women education is so scarce in underdeveloped countries. So, women are hardly educated in those countries.

According to the recent report of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), among the 774 illiterate adults (24+ of age), 2/3 are women. According to the calculation, 516 million adult women are illiterate. Also, among the 123 million illiterate youth (15-24 of age), 76 million are women. UNESCO report about the countries giving equal rights in education to both boys and girls is much disappointing which is less than 40%. This shows that only 80 countries out of 196 countries are giving equal rights to boys and girls without any discrimination. In developed countries, female literacy rate is nearly 95%. But the female literacy rate in underdeveloped nations hardly reaches at 42%. Most of the countries having this low ratio of literacy rate for female are located in South Asia, Middle Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the above mentioned statistics and data, the percentage of female literacy rate is much lesser than male. The reasons behind these bigger differences are very common in

most of the countries. The reasons may be cultural, traditional, economical, social, and domestic problems. In most of the countries it is a common tradition to marry girls in a small age of 15 or 18. The child marriage of girls makes them to leave their study hardly completing Lower Secondary Studies. This means female literacy rate is inversely proportional to the child marriages. According to the survey of Unicef, South Asia is holding the biggest percent of child marriage in the world with 42%.

Moreover, the undeveloped countries are mostly inhabited by poor people and those countries cannot afford free education along with free transport, stationers and other expenses of students at the same time. So the people in those countries invest their barely earned money on boys’ education and girls are left behind for house jobs.

Socially, girls have to face harassment, stalking, abusive languages, and blackmailing. Oftentimes girls are absurdly raped and killed. Women are also harassed in offices by their senior colleagues and bureaucrat. These social issues not just become hurdles for women education but also keep women from doing a job.

Women education is the first step towards the empowerment of women. We all should take this step together to make women empowered so that they should not depend on men for their choices and living.