WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, EDUCATION AND HINDRANCE

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, EDUCATION AND HINDRANCE 
(A Thought to Sensitize)
Tapash Das, Assistant Teacher 

Women empowerment is the process in which women elaborate and recreate what it is that they can be, do, and accomplish in a circumstance that they previously were denied.

"By educating a boy, an individual is educated. But when a girl is educated, a generation is educated ". So, goes a proverb which captures the importance of girls' education. Besides educating half of the child population, girls' education has more return in real terms.

In recent times, women throughout the world have attained excellence in every human endeavour. Having access to proper education, women have achieved at per with men and even have excelled in many fields. To aim at such women empowerment, education is the key and early education of the girls provides the base for it. Education of girls' leads to empowerment and thus reduces iniquitous status of girls and women otherwise given a lower position in the family and in the work places. Health of family members is better taken care by an educated mother so also is the education of children in the family. Even girls in primary schools can bring about transformation in the maintaining a ckeaner home environment and developing healthy habits of the family members. To avail many of such benefits from women empowerment and while the apathy towards girl child's education begins in the family, it also continues in different forms in the school and classroom.

Opportunity of having a school nearer to the habitation of a child is still lacking in remote rural areas. Families do notlike to send the girls to a school situated at a distant place or if the approach to the school is considered unsafe either due to difficult geographical conditions. While several infrastructure inadequacies like lack of required number of classrooms, small and crowded classrooms, rooms without adequate light and absence of toilet and drinking water facilities create uncomfortable situation for all learners, both boys and girls, lack of separate toilet and water facilities are considered most unfavorable conditions for girl students in the school.

Knowingly or unknowingly we usually give less attention to the girl education and other problems they face in the school and classrooms. In the class room the girls sit separately away from the boys. In group work, girls sit in separate groups, girls are not engaged to perform learning activities as frequently as boys in the classroom and the girls are asked less number of questions than the boys during the classroom interaction.

To get rid of those hindrances of women education government has been adopting various schemes, such as NATIONAL PROGRAMME FOR EDUCATION OF GIRLS at ELEMENTARY LEVEL. NPEGEL is a separate, ender - distinct but integral components of SSA Ameant for "most difficult to reach" girls, which provides additional support for enhancing girls education over and above the investment fir girls education through normal SSA intervention. KASTURBA GANDHI BALIKA VIDYALAYA provides for setting up residential schools at the upper primary level for girls belonging predominantly to the SC, ST, OBC and minority communities where the female rural rate is below average.

The most important and urgent need is social sensitization towards women education and women empowerment. Without social sensitization nothing is possible and every government programme will fail to meet the target.