Education: A Tool for Empowerment of Women

Abstract

“You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women”

-Jawaharlal Nehru

Empowerment is an active multidimensional process which should enable women to realize their full identity and power in all spheres of life. Empowerment literally means making someone powerful, facilitating the weak to attain strength, to increase one’s self-esteem, to help someone to be assertive/self-confident, to enable someone to confront injustice and oppression and to support someone to fight for  her rights. Educated women can play a pivotal role in eradicating poverty and accelerating development process. They can take active part in all the spheres of life. Educated mothers can take care of the education of their children irrespective of the boys or girls. The children in turn improve their capabilities and thereby enlarge their choices, enjoying long and healthy life, educated environment having access to the resources because of their better education qualifications. Thus peace, prosperity and stability of a family depend on the females who formulate the household budget in a manner that it builds up the healthy family environment. The family budget is oriented towards the provision of qualitative education and health facilities to the children so that they become competitive and promote cohesive social and economic development benefiting all the sections in the country.  In this way the paper highlights process, indicators, levels of women empowerment, educational position of rural women, factors responsible for poor female literacy, education - a tool for empowerment and role of ICT in women’s education for empowerment.