1. What is empowerment?
To give permission or power to do something; in simple words it means to give the confidence to do something Increasing the political, spiritual or economic capacity of individuals in a society
2. Education plays a very important part in improving individual’s well-being and society’s economic and social development
3. It is very important today that both men and women should be educated if we want our society and economy to be prosperous
4. Why is empowering girls through education very important in contemporary Islamic society?
Educating girls brings many benefits to society. As educated mother gives importance to education and they invest more in their children’s schooling and this improves society’s development prospect. They strongly believe and practice family planning. They give equal importance to education, health and increase the productivity of future generation. And if they are not educated then the productivity and capacity of future generation will be low.
5. What are some of the benefits of empowering women through education?
As female education rises, fertility, population growth, and infant and child mortality fall and family health improves. Increases in girls’ secondary school enrollment are associated with increases in women’s participation in the labor force and their contributions to household and national income. Women’s increased earning capacity, in turn, has a positive effect on child nutrition. Children — especially daughters — of educated mothers are more likely to be enrolled in school and to have higher levels of educational attainment. Educated women are more politically active and better informed about their legal rights and how to exercise them.
Thus women’s education should be taken as a serious issue and steps should be taken to bring awareness about importance of education among every woman
both in urban and rural area. This way many of the social problems like poverty, begging, child labor, child marriage and child mortality will be controlled up to some extent.
6. Negative attitudes of parents toward educating daughters can also be one of the biggest barriers to a girl’s education. Many parents think educating sons is an investment because the sons will be responsible for caring for aging parents. On the other hand, parents may see the education of daughters a waste of money because the girls are not expected to make economical contribution in the family. They are expected to take care of family and carry out household chores. Promoting girls education therefore involves changing attitude across society merely spending money on girls education will not solve this problem. The attitude can be changed when the gender gap is reduced and when the society is aware that educating women will bring about better consequences. Seminars can be arranged where importance of women empowerment is laid.
Other important things that would help in making girl’s empowerment through education a success is the availability of financial resources. One of the biggest barrier to education is poverty there it is very important that such people who cannot afford sending their daughters to school, for them school fee should be abolished.
7. What are some of the challenges of empowering women?
Gender gaps in parts of various regions are one of the biggest challenges. It is still thought that educating sons is more important as compared to daughters Many parents are not comfortable in sending their daughters to school It is just not enough to make education available more important is that it should be of good quality. Schools should have well qualified teachers.
8. Both governments and non-government organizations should come forward in empowering women through education. Government and private organizations need to make an extra effort to ensure that education is more accessible to low-income families and rural populations, with special attention to the
quality of the education provided and the need for girls to complete school. Richer countries should help and support the not so poor countries by making educational investments by building up private schools and encouraging women education. Investing in female education will accelerate the economic and social development by enhancing human capital, slowing population growth, and alleviating poverty.