Education Portal for Students in India

There are many things that hinder women from getting something as basic as an education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that poverty, geographical isolation, minority status, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence, and traditional attitudes about the status and role of women are among the many obstacles that prevent women from fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education.

• The result, the UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics reveals, is that there are 16 million girls in the world who will never set foot in a classroom.
• Why men need to play a role in women’s education Women also account for two-thirds of the 750 million adults without basic literacy, indicating that while boys in some regions of the world are equally disadvantaged, lack of access to education plagues girls more, clearly.

What’s equally evident is that to bring about concrete global changes, and bridge this gender gap in education, engaging men and boys in gender transformative programs or initiatives is of vital importance. This is primarily because women’s empowerment is not a goal that can be achieved in a vacuum.

The everyday inequality and discrimination women face is directly associated with our relations with men, especially when it comes to accessing resources and decision-making. It’s therefore quite logical that eliminating these inequalities require equal, if not more, efforts by men and boys. Now if you’re assuming this is a new-fangled idea, think again.

History is testament to the fact that enlightened men—men who see women as equal partners with unlimited potential rather than subjects or objects to control—have played a huge role in helping women find their voice, make their stand and march towards liberation. Raja Ram Mohun Roy You may know this 19th century social reformer as the leader credited for the abolition of the Sati pratha—where a widow is burned alive on the funeral pyre of her dead husband—but there’s a lot more that Raja Ram Mohun Roy accomplished during his life.

When it comes to education reform, Roy was one of the leading Bengali intelligentsia who believed in teaching Indians Western science, literature, philosophy and medicine. Not only was he one of the founders of major educational institutions like Hindu College (later known as Presidency College), the City College, and numerous English Schools across colonial Calcutta, but also advocated the need for educating women.

Education Indian women was already a target set by Christian missionaries, but it was Roy who helped popularize the concept among the elite Hindus. His argument against those naysayers who believed educating women was against Hindu culture was to delve into the shastras and prove that women’s education formed a core of ancient Hindu traditions, and had led to near-mythical women scholars like Gargi and Maitreyi. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Quite like Roy, school textbooks celebrate Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as the Indian reformer behind the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856. What many don’t know is that Vidyasagar was a social reformer who understood that a mere act of legislation cannot change the fate of women in the country, nor would it help women fight centuries of social oppression.

1. Educating women was, therefore, the larger, lifelong goal he tireless worked towards.
2. As one of the leading educators of the time, Vidyasagar held power to lobby for schools for the Indian girl child, and the fact that he exercised this power to the hilt is a fact that cannot be denied.
3. Vidyasagar organized a fund called the Nari Shiksha Bhandar, and led door-to-door campaigns asking families to allow their daughters to be enrolled in schools.

He frequently campaigned for women’s education through contemporary English and Bengali publications like the Hindu Patriot, Tattwabodhini Patrika and Somprakash. He not only opened 35 girls schools across Bengal, enrolling 1,300 girls successfully, but also helped JE Drinkwater Bethune establish the first permanent girls’ school in India, the Bethune School, in 1849. Jyotirao Phule The fact that Jyotirao Phule, and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were the pioneers of women’s education in India is well known. Phule’s lifelong drive for women’s education stemmed from his own personal experiences as a Dalit man living in 19th century India.

He realized that as long as the shudras, ati-shudras and women—all marginalized categories—were deprived of education, they would not be able to get a voice of their own, let alone develop as communities with self-respect and basic human rights. This idea was proved when Phule visited the Christian missionary school run by Cynthia Farrars in Ahmednagar (the institution where Savitribai also studied), and observed how much confidence the female students had gained.

So, in August 1848, Phule opened the first girls’ school in the house of Shri Bhide in Pune. It’s reported that on the very first day, nine girls from different social backgrounds enrolled at the school. Between 1848 and 1852, Phule and Savitribai opened 18 schools in and around Pune, all of them for girls as well as for children from Dalit families. Periyar EV Ramaswamy “Only education, self-respect and rational qualities will uplift the down-trodden,” the Dravidian social reformer EV Ramaswamy, popularly known as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, is known to have quipped once upon a time—and never have words been truer, especially for women.

You may not know much about this social reformer, but the work he did to advocate for women’s rights, especially right to education, vocation and property, is unparalleled in Indian history. Not only did he argue that ideas like chastity should not be unfairly heaped on only women, but also believed that women should have unhindered access to education, especially vocational education.

Role of women in today’s society | Importance of women in today’s world essay or speech in English

A scholar of ancient Tamil literature, Periyar used instances from these texts to prove that education is a basic women’s right. Not only did he actively campaign for women’s education, but also wanted it to be holistic with an inclusion of physical activity so that women develop physical strength as well as mental acuity. BR Ambedkar Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is popularly celebrated as the chief architect of the Indian constitution, and also as an icon for the Dalit rights movements in the country. But Ambedkar believed that women have a key role to play in the emancipation of oppressed communities, and this could be done by ensuring their own rights to property and education.

“I measure the progress of community by the degree of progress which women have achieved,” he said at the Second All-India Depressed Classes Women’s Conference held on 20 July, 1942. “I shall tell you a few things which I think you should bear in mind. Learn to be clean; keep free from all vices. Give education to your children.

Instill ambition in them. Inculcate on their minds that they are destined to be great. Remove from them all inferiority complexes.” To achieve these goals, Ambedkar advocated for women’s right to be educated along with men in the same schools and colleges, since it would ensure that both get the same quality of education.

He believed that women’s education could help them achieve two purposes: their own empowerment, and the empowerment of others through them. However, Ambedkar argued against professional or vocational education as per the British education system, since it aims at creating a clerical nature of workers.

His emphasis, instead, was on secular education for social emancipation and freedom so that depressed classes can enhance their social, economic and political status.
View complete answer

Who was the first woman educated?

First woman of Indian Education The education system is flourished in the early centuries of civilization and then saw a constant downfall for about thousand years. The Indian education system finally perished during the time of the reign of British in India.

1. Later when things started to stabilize and people again deviated to focus on educating the youth of the country a western education system took its footsteps in the Indian education scenario and lot of missionary schools started unfolding their education beliefs.
2. This was also the time when Indian people started opening their own setups to increase the outreach of education to oppressed and underprivileged.

The only woman that stood out in that era also referred as the first woman educationist in India, is Mrs. Savitri bai Phule. Early life and inspiration Mrs. Phule was born in Naya Ganj oh Satara District in the state of Maharashtra in 1831. At the age of 9, she got married to one of the most iconic figures during the Indian freedom struggle who is Mahatma Jyoti Rao Phule.

1. After her marriage, she got home schooled by her husband who was himself studying rom Scottish Mission High School of Pune and passed secondary education from the same school.
2. After understanding the importance of education and seeing her husband declining a government job she got inspired and took an oath to help her husband in performing social reforms even at the cost of her life.

The first girls school Mrs Phule along with her husband started a school dedicated to girls in 1848 in Pune and became the headmistress and took the charge of the school. It was the time when educating a girl child was almost banned in India. She did voracious campaign and admitted various Brahmin girl children in her school along with girls from lower casts as well.
View complete answer

Who fought for women’s education in India in Tamil?

R.S.Subbalakshmi
Born	18 August 1886 Mylapore, Madras, India
Died	20 December 1969 (aged 83) Madras
Education	Botany
Alma mater	Presidency College, Madras
Occupation	Social reformer, educationist, Member of Madras Legislative Council, Madras Presidency
Movement	Rehabilitation of child widows through education
Awards	Kaiser-i-Hind award, Padma Shree award
Website	sites,google,com /site /sisterrssubbalakshmi /

Sister R.S. Subbalakshmi (sometimes spelled Subbulakshmi or Subhalakshmi ) (18 August 1886 – 20 December 1969), was a social reformer and educationist in India.
View complete answer

Who fought for female education?

There are many things that hinder women from getting something as basic as an education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that poverty, geographical isolation, minority status, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence, and traditional attitudes about the status and role of women are among the many obstacles that prevent women from fully exercising their right to participate in, complete, and benefit from education.

• The result, the UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics reveals, is that there are 16 million girls in the world who will never set foot in a classroom.
• Why men need to play a role in women’s education Women also account for two-thirds of the 750 million adults without basic literacy, indicating that while boys in some regions of the world are equally disadvantaged, lack of access to education plagues girls more, clearly.

What’s equally evident is that to bring about concrete global changes, and bridge this gender gap in education, engaging men and boys in gender transformative programs or initiatives is of vital importance. This is primarily because women’s empowerment is not a goal that can be achieved in a vacuum.

1. The everyday inequality and discrimination women face is directly associated with our relations with men, especially when it comes to accessing resources and decision-making.
2. It’s therefore quite logical that eliminating these inequalities require equal, if not more, efforts by men and boys.
3. Now if you’re assuming this is a new-fangled idea, think again.

History is testament to the fact that enlightened men—men who see women as equal partners with unlimited potential rather than subjects or objects to control—have played a huge role in helping women find their voice, make their stand and march towards liberation. Raja Ram Mohun Roy You may know this 19th century social reformer as the leader credited for the abolition of the Sati pratha—where a widow is burned alive on the funeral pyre of her dead husband—but there’s a lot more that Raja Ram Mohun Roy accomplished during his life.

• When it comes to education reform, Roy was one of the leading Bengali intelligentsia who believed in teaching Indians Western science, literature, philosophy and medicine.
• Not only was he one of the founders of major educational institutions like Hindu College (later known as Presidency College), the City College, and numerous English Schools across colonial Calcutta, but also advocated the need for educating women.

Education Indian women was already a target set by Christian missionaries, but it was Roy who helped popularize the concept among the elite Hindus. His argument against those naysayers who believed educating women was against Hindu culture was to delve into the shastras and prove that women’s education formed a core of ancient Hindu traditions, and had led to near-mythical women scholars like Gargi and Maitreyi. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Quite like Roy, school textbooks celebrate Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as the Indian reformer behind the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856. What many don’t know is that Vidyasagar was a social reformer who understood that a mere act of legislation cannot change the fate of women in the country, nor would it help women fight centuries of social oppression.

Educating women was, therefore, the larger, lifelong goal he tireless worked towards. As one of the leading educators of the time, Vidyasagar held power to lobby for schools for the Indian girl child, and the fact that he exercised this power to the hilt is a fact that cannot be denied. Vidyasagar organized a fund called the Nari Shiksha Bhandar, and led door-to-door campaigns asking families to allow their daughters to be enrolled in schools.

He frequently campaigned for women’s education through contemporary English and Bengali publications like the Hindu Patriot, Tattwabodhini Patrika and Somprakash. He not only opened 35 girls schools across Bengal, enrolling 1,300 girls successfully, but also helped JE Drinkwater Bethune establish the first permanent girls’ school in India, the Bethune School, in 1849. Jyotirao Phule The fact that Jyotirao Phule, and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were the pioneers of women’s education in India is well known. Phule’s lifelong drive for women’s education stemmed from his own personal experiences as a Dalit man living in 19th century India.

1. He realized that as long as the shudras, ati-shudras and women—all marginalized categories—were deprived of education, they would not be able to get a voice of their own, let alone develop as communities with self-respect and basic human rights.
2. This idea was proved when Phule visited the Christian missionary school run by Cynthia Farrars in Ahmednagar (the institution where Savitribai also studied), and observed how much confidence the female students had gained.

So, in August 1848, Phule opened the first girls’ school in the house of Shri Bhide in Pune. It’s reported that on the very first day, nine girls from different social backgrounds enrolled at the school. Between 1848 and 1852, Phule and Savitribai opened 18 schools in and around Pune, all of them for girls as well as for children from Dalit families. Periyar EV Ramaswamy “Only education, self-respect and rational qualities will uplift the down-trodden,” the Dravidian social reformer EV Ramaswamy, popularly known as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, is known to have quipped once upon a time—and never have words been truer, especially for women.

You may not know much about this social reformer, but the work he did to advocate for women’s rights, especially right to education, vocation and property, is unparalleled in Indian history. Not only did he argue that ideas like chastity should not be unfairly heaped on only women, but also believed that women should have unhindered access to education, especially vocational education.

Role of women in today’s society | Importance of women in today’s world essay or speech in English

A scholar of ancient Tamil literature, Periyar used instances from these texts to prove that education is a basic women’s right. Not only did he actively campaign for women’s education, but also wanted it to be holistic with an inclusion of physical activity so that women develop physical strength as well as mental acuity. BR Ambedkar Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is popularly celebrated as the chief architect of the Indian constitution, and also as an icon for the Dalit rights movements in the country. But Ambedkar believed that women have a key role to play in the emancipation of oppressed communities, and this could be done by ensuring their own rights to property and education.

“I measure the progress of community by the degree of progress which women have achieved,” he said at the Second All-India Depressed Classes Women’s Conference held on 20 July, 1942. “I shall tell you a few things which I think you should bear in mind. Learn to be clean; keep free from all vices. Give education to your children.

Instill ambition in them. Inculcate on their minds that they are destined to be great. Remove from them all inferiority complexes.” To achieve these goals, Ambedkar advocated for women’s right to be educated along with men in the same schools and colleges, since it would ensure that both get the same quality of education.

• He believed that women’s education could help them achieve two purposes: their own empowerment, and the empowerment of others through them.
• However, Ambedkar argued against professional or vocational education as per the British education system, since it aims at creating a clerical nature of workers.

His emphasis, instead, was on secular education for social emancipation and freedom so that depressed classes can enhance their social, economic and political status.
View complete answer

Was one woman who was famous for learning?

Who was the woman thinker who was famous for her learning? No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today! No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today! No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today! Right on! Give the BNAT exam to get a 100% scholarship for BYJUS courses Open in App Suggest Corrections 3 : Who was the woman thinker who was famous for her learning?
View complete answer

Who is the first woman teacher in the world?

“To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”-Hillary Clinton. Why does the investment in the education of others matter? The Asherah Foundation believes that education is power, opportunity, and growth for women around the world, who may not otherwise have these things.

• Education equips a woman with the skills and opportunities they need to help their community or become a leader, and no one knew this to be true more than Savitribai Phule.
• Born in Naigaon, India on Jan.3, 1831, Savitribai was married young to her husband Jyotirao Phule.
• As was the custom of the time, Savitribai was a child bride.

But as fate would have it, her husband was progressive and openminded and would become her partner in social and educational reform. It was her husband that saw her ambition and desire to learn which led him to teach her how to read and write. After her primary education, she went on to receive training while attending school in Ahmednagar and in Pune where she completed her studies and became a qualified teacher.

Savitribai and her husband went on to open India’s first school for girls on Jan.1, 1848. It was this moment when Savitribai became the girls’ teacher, making her the first female teacher in India’s history. But her achievements didn’t stop there; Savitribai opened 18 schools over the course of her lifetime.

In 1854 she opened a large shelter for widows, child brides, and other disadvantaged women who were abandoned by their families. In her later years, Savitribai cofounded with her husband the Truth-seeker’s Society, or Satyashodhak Samaj, an organization dedicated to seeking equality among the castes in the Indian caste system.

• Savitribai was a vehicle for change in Indian culture, and at the heart of her work was a thirst for equality and an unrelenting need to see her society changed for the better.
• She saw the value in human life and fought for everyone to have equal access to education.
• However, the road to educational and social reform wasn’t an easy one for Savitribai.

In a day and age where girls weren’t allowed to go to school and where the mixing of caste systems was unacceptable, Savitribai’s dreams of equality for genders and castes were viewed as a threat to the Indian way of life. When Savitribai and Jyotirao opened their school for girls, they were evicted from their family home and left homeless.

Savitribai was also met with verbal and physical abuse, and had people throw rocks and dung at her. She was met with constant opposition and challenge, but she knew the value of bringing education to women and to those who society had forgotten. Even though society was against her and all she stood for, this powerful woman became a champion of social reform and an advocate for the education and empowerment of women.

In recognition of her monumental achievements and inspiring legacy, on Aug.9, 2014, the University of Pune was renamed the Savitribai Phule Pune University. What an inspiration this woman is to the world! As you can see by the life and legacy of Savitribai Phule, when you invest in someone’s right to an education, you are investing in their well-being and the well-being of their communities.
View complete answer

Who started women’s studies?

Overview – Women’s Studies, also referred to as Gender Studies or Feminist Studies, is the interdisciplinary study of how intersectionality of gender, race, age, class, nationality, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, and other differences impact almost every facet of the social, political, and cultural experience.

• The basis for the academic field of Women’s Studies was laid in the student, civil rights, and women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s, when women in academia argued that academic knowledge production failed to recognize gender as a lens of analysis.
• Many women, concerned about the often inaccurate and disparaging patriarchal narratives about them, seized the opportunity presented to them in the 1960s and 1970s to tell their own stories.

Women took advantage of their formal educated status and the cultural atmosphere of radical, social, and political uproar to insist on a more systematic and potentially transformative narrative about women’s lives. The discipline examines how gender not only influences popular culture and private life, but also impacts laws and social policies.

By examining a cross section of disciplines such as political science, sociology, literature, psychology, and other subjects, Women’s Studies seeks to understand gender roles in past and contemporary societies. Women’s and gender studies also examines how the lives of individual women and men are shaped by broader structural forces in both historical and contemporary contexts, for e.g., nation building, globalization, economic developments, and the legal system.

Women’s Studies continues to reflect in its curriculum and faculty research the constantly changing directions that multiple First and Third World feminisms are taking today. Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines socially- and culturally-defined gender roles.

Drawing upon academic areas such as history, psychology, media sociology, sociology, literary criticism, and anthropology, it crosses the boundaries of traditional disciplines raising important questions regarding the way we have organized ourselves, our chief social and political institutions, and knowledge itself.

As an area of academic study, Women’s Studies provides new frameworks that are sensitive not only to issues of gender, but also race, class, and ethnicity. By analyzing the powerful and problematic impact of sexual inequalities, Women’s Studies revises the way we see ourselves and our world.

• Because of the growing importance of women’s concerns globally, undergraduates with a concentration in Women’s Studies are well prepared for professional programs in law, medicine, and business, as well as graduate programs in social work, education, and arts and sciences.
• Indeed, students who major in Women’s Studies, whether or not they choose to go on to professional or graduate school, are especially well positioned to work in education, policy institutions, development, media, social work, and the private sector.

Even though Women’s Studies is a relatively new phenomenon in higher education, it is today well established as an interdisciplinary field of study, which draws on knowledge from both the humanities, the social sciences, medicine, and natural science.

Today the field’s interrogation of identity, power, and privilege go far beyond the category ‘woman.’ The first Women’s Studies course is purported to have been created by American historian Mary Ritter Beard, who in 1934 constructed a 54-page syllabus for a course titled A Changing Political Economy as It Affects Women (Tuttle, 1986).

Although the course was never taught, it prepared the foundation for the development of the first Women’s Studies program in the United States. The first Women’s Studies department was founded at San Diego State College (now San Diego State University) in 1970.

1. At San Diego State, the on-campus Women’s Liberation group formed a committee with faculty and community members called the Ad Hoc Committee for Women’s Studies.
2. The group collected hundreds of petition signatures in support of a Women’s Studies program.
3. In 1970, five San Diego State faculty members from existing departments taught courses related to Women’s Studies.

In the fall of 1970, the first Women’s Studies Department was officially approved. By 1974, San Diego State had begun a national faculty recruitment to strengthen the Women’s Studies Department. By the 1974–75 school year, the once fledgling department had two full-time and four part-time faculty and an enrollment of nearly 400 students.

• The Women’s Studies department continued to grow, and in 1995 began offering a master’s degree in addition to the bachelor’s degree.
• The program also hosts a Women’s Resource Center on campus.
• The second Women’s Studies department was created at Cornell University in 1970 as well.
• Cornell’s program was renamed Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in 2002.

Women’s Studies has made the conceptual claims and theoretical practices of intersectionality, the study of how modes of identity such as race, class, and gender, and the sociopolitical construction of inequality are mutually comprised and must continually be understood in relationship to one another, and transnationalism, which emphasizes cultures, structures, and relationships that are formed as a result of the movement of people and resources across geopolitical borders, foundations of the discipline.

Eventually Women’s Studies was institutionalized into thriving academic programs across the country. Currently there are over 600 academic Women’s Studies programs that offer minors, majors, and even graduate degree options. As a discipline, Women’s Studies is concerned with achieving a level of equality for women in society.

This dedication to systemic social change makes Women’s Studies scholarship feminist and links the discipline to social movements that seek to end practices of inequity such as sexism, racism, and heterosexism around the world. The place of Women’s Studies within the academy has, of course, always been highly contested.

1. Within the university, the discipline was said to not be academic enough.
2. At the same time, however, feminist activists outside of the academy argued that the discipline was being too academic.
3. Moreover, Women’s Studies was further problematized by the emergence of disciplines like gender studies, and queer, transgender, and postcolonial theories in the 1980s and 1990s, which challenged the very category of ‘woman’ and called into question the founding premises of its identity politics.

This social activism appears to have given way to academic practice as the dominant mode of ‘Western’ feminism at the turn of the millennium. However, the goals of the women’s movement have not been fully endorsed. Women still strive to address issues such as equal pay for equal work, free childcare, and autonomy of sexuality.
View complete answer

Who is the advocate for women’s right to education?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf In the face of widespread and systemic adversity, millions of women around the world do not have education as a birthright.
View complete answer

Who was the main advocate for women’s rights?

Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a young mother from upstate New York, and the Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott, about 300 people—most of whom were women—attended the Seneca Falls Convention to outline a direction for the women’s rights movement.
View complete answer