Role of Education in Empowering Women: A Case Study

Abstract

According to Census Report 2011, nearly 50% of the population of our country are women. They have a great contribution in society. Therefore, we cannot deny the importance of them. In spite of great contribution in society, the women are less empowered in every field of society. The conception of empowerment is based on the notion of power; empowerment by definition means “enabling”, “giving, receiving or obtaining power” or “giving the official or legal authority or the freedom to do something”. In addition, empowerment is defined as the equalization of power and the more efficient use of resources Women’s education leads to empowerment. There are two reasons behind selecting the topic “Role of Education in Empowering Women” for the present study. Firstly, there has been no found any comparative study in the review of literature regarding the measurement of empowerment between educated and uneducated women. Secondly, no literature has been found on education and women empowerment in the study area. The present paper fulfills this research gap. Dinhata block-II of Cooch Behar district, West Bengal has been selected for the purpose of the study. The study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data have been collected from a field survey in Dinhata block-II of Cooch Behar district, West Bengal. Secondary data have also been collected from various journals, articles, working papers and education related website. For study purpose it has been selected 200 women from the study area. Among them 100 are educated and the rest 100 women are uneducated. A structured interview schedule was prepared and used for collecting data from the respondents in the study area. To analyse the results a simple statistical technique like percentage has been used. To compare the results, Chi-square test has been used. In the present study, it has been considered nine indicators to measure empowerment between educated and uneducated women. From the results and discussion it has been observed that educated women are more empowered as compare to uneducated one. Chi-square Test shows the significance difference between educated and uneducated women regarding empowerment. Thus, it can be conclude that education is very important factor in empowering women.