Gender Equity for Human and Educational Development in Asia

Abstract

In the present globalised world, education plays the central role for building a knowledge economy, which is also the priority area in educational policies across the globe. Therefore, the benefits of education should be available to all irrespective of age, class and gender. However, the fact is that lack of gender equality and the prevailing gender discriminations have posed a great challenge in maintaining the balance in Human Development indicates towards a process of enlarging people’s choice, helping them to lead a long and healthy life, and enabling them to become educated so that they can enjoy a descent standard of living. In the context of Asia, there are some very high and high human development countries such as—Korea, Japan, China and Singapore where women are more privileged in terms of accessing educational opportunities which is not so apparent in case of the women in medium and low human development countries like—India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Against this background, education is the only way to transform the lives of the women in general. Of late in Asia, ODL has emerged as one of the most viable mechanisms for ensuring gender equity by providing a more justified approach to the education for women. This paper is an attempt to examine the present status of Gender Inequality Index in some select Asian countries and to explore how Gender Inequality plays an important role for Human Development. Finally, this paper shall identify some best practices adopted by some mega open universities of Asia for reducing Gender Inequality and accelerating the capacity building among women.