Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, once said, “You can tell the state of a nation by looking at the status of the Women there”. How true his words are? Women play a significant role in a country’s economic development. Better living condition for them can escalate nation’s growth rapidly. More so as women are mostly untapped resources and their potentials generally remain unexplored.
Education, especially women’s Education is the key element that lacks particularly in India. If one closely observes the status of women in India, one would find their position is daunting and pathetic. As per the recent stats, female Literacy Rate in India is still 54.16 percent, which is quite low. No one can turn blind eye to the fact that women have a much lower Literacy rate than men. Far fewer girls are enrolled in the schools, and many of them are drop out. Even if girls are encouraged to receive education, greater challenge remains, the learning provided to them is too little to prepare them for 21st – century job markets.
Education of women is significant in improving living standards of the country. Higher literacy rate of women helps in improving quality of life both at home and outside as education cannot be just linked to employment but affects others aspects like fertility , hygiene etc. Studies show lower women literacy rate results in high levels infant mortality, poorer nutrition, lower earning etc.
In India, there is great disparity amongst different states regarding Female Literacy Rate. States like Kerala has female literacy rate of about 86 percent, whereas Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have 55-60 percent. Furthermore, the disparity of female literacy rates across rural and urban areas is also too high.
NGO Support
Many NGOs are working to uplift status of Indian women in many ways. Women education is one such pivotal aspect for which several NGOs are working aggressively. Education not only stimulates female empowerment but also fortifies the process of changing prevalent misguided mindsets and derivative of socio- cultural factors towards the girl child and women in general.
One such NGO working in this direction is SPARSH, which strongly believes that dreams are not just restricted to one gender and females should also get the opportunity to realize them. Its mission is to emancipate women and to motivate them to acquire new skills. 'Project Shakti', one of our initiatives aimed at providing girl child education in India that will empower them, and save them from poverty and exploitation. Presently, around 50 girls are being given free evening classes under this project.
