During the late 19th and 20th century,
the social reformers advocated significantly to educate women. Even the role of
British rule in promoting education among girls in India was also commendable.
During the period of girls education was popular among the selected group of
people, who were politically active in the freedom struggle. Objectively, the
women education was mean to teach ‘the ideals of Indian womanhood’(Chapter 9,
A Century and Half’s Journey: Women Education in India, 1850s to 2000; Aparna
Basu, in Edited Bharti Ray; Women in India; Colonial and Post-Colonial Periods).
Apart from colonial rulers, the role of charitable trust, private
endowment, Christian missionary schools was quite significant in promoting
education in India and still the best educational institutes are being managed
by the private trust or organization in India.
The Constitution of India views education as the potential instrument of
social change, bringing social equality and enhance opportunities for social
mobility. Even Article 45 of the Constitution of India clearly states that ‘the
state shall endeavor to provide within a period of ten years from the
commencement of the Constitution, compulsory education to all children up to
the age of 14 years’.
Apart from the Constitutional obligation, the Government of India
appointed many commissions (The Indian Universities Commission, headed by Dr
Radhakrishnan in 1948-49; The Secondary Education Commission in 1952-53; The
Education Commission also known as Kothari Commission in 1964-66) and
committees (Durgabai Deshmukh Committee in 1958; Another Committee in 1963; The
Committee on the Status of Women in 1971-74) to look after the issue
of promoting education to everyone in general, but among women in particular.
When we observe the Government of India efforts on the basis of the Five
Years Planning period, the many efforts were addressing the need of the
educated women and the women education was not yet recognized as instrument of
personal development. The emphasis of educating women enabled them to deal their
marriage life effectively. Therefore, a series of home science course was
introduced in many universities in India.
During the First and Second Five Year Plan, the women education
was ambitiously linked with the professional enhancement intervention and the
Durgabai Committee in 1958 recognized this fact that there was urgent need to
take bold effort in allocating more fund for primary education and suggested to
establish a National Council for Girls and Women’s education.
The National Education Policy Resolution in 1968 touched the issue of
gender discrimination and left with any suggestion of ‘implementing the common
curriculum’ (Aparna Basu), but was unable to provide even the workable strategy
at the national level. However, all these commissions and committees stressed
the need for empowering women, ‘that is making them capable of guiding their
own destiny and becoming self reliant through exposure to education and
survival skills, including income generation’.
Although education was recognized the pivotal factor of national
development since the time of independence, but recognition of the school took
a long time as another "Temples of modern India" (First Prime
Minister of India, Nehru’s reference to Bhakra as Temples of modern India, on October
22, 1963, while dedicating Bhakra Dam to the nation).
This is also here to understand that India was rapidly growing as the
planned economy and role of the government was seen as significant in every
sphere of life. Second, the industrialization was adopted as a mean for
national development and growth. During this period of time, the Government did
not prevent the promotion of education but shifted the nature of concentration
in education. A large number of schools were opened in the urban areas and the
technical education was also promoted as this was considered as the need of
hour. The urban elites were less concerned about the rural India because the
industrialization was the core development agenda till mid 1970s in India.
In this macro level development design, the people from the micro level
(rural areas) are generally seen as potential labor force in the production
system of industry. The rural women were insignificant at this stage of time,
as an important human resource. While, the development of the women was focused
to make them ready to take care of the family and for which, education was the
least required instrument. During these periods of time, the concept of women
education and empowerment was hardly an important agenda in most of the
countries in the world.
This seems sometime contradictory to compare the educational improvement
among women between the present and past period in India, because, in the
agenda of industrialization, there was particular significance attached with
three kinds of resources (Ashutosh Varshney, 1995), a) food for the increasing
urban population b) labor to man expanding industrial workforce c) saving to
finance industrial investment.
In the recent time, the changes in many countries have been recognized
in the area of girls’ education and empowerment of women. A series of changes
and women movements evolved at the global stage in 1970s. The women were
conspicuously absent within the modernization paradigm of economic development
and the real development model was based on market and economic growth.
The widespread criticisms of the modernization project from academia and
developmental activists were gradually being observered by the world. Easter
Boserup (1970) criticized modernization project, which harmed the women in Asia
and Africa. She was also pioneer in evolving the concept, Women in Development.
The development world also observed significant change in the area of women and
how women’s issues to be conceptualized-‘from welfare based frameworks through
productivity focused approaches to empowerment based strategies’ (Aradhna
Sharma, 2008).
Meanwhile, the United Nations declared 1975 as the International Year
for Women and the first Women Conference in Mexico generated a new interest and
debate on women’s issues. In the development paradigm, the transition to
empowerment was represented as a journey from welfare to Women in Development
(WID) to Gender and Development (GAD).
