WOMEN are considered nation builders as they are the first to provide education to their children. But as most rural women in Bangladesh are deprived of even the very basic education, they can not be expected to be the provider of education to their children.
A woman in rural Bangladesh spends most of her time attending daily household chores with barely any time to spare for her children. This is an undesirable situation. Women should be given the light of education and some basic trainings in order that they become more economically empowered and self-conscious. If we visit the villages, we will find many women who do not have primary education and were married off at an early stage because of financial limitations of their parents.
The government should provide proper education for women in villages and to do so more educational institutions should be established in remote villages. Furthermore, the government ought to focus on various trainings for rural women to make them professionally capable and self reliant to contribute to our economy.
Different NGOs have training courses on various subjects. A good number of these trainings are meant to generate more income. Although some of these trainings are meant for women, the coverage is far from satisfactory. Larger sections of women should be brought under these training schemes. For example, if a woman is trained to take care of her kitchen garden on how to produce more, and how to stop plant diseases, she might be inspired to go for other income generating activities like small-scale poultry or fish firming. Besides fetching them more earnings, these activities would make them exposed to the outside world with a growing awareness about the society at large. It is high time that both the government as well as the NGOs think hard on the matter.
Sumon Kumar Paul
Patuakhali Science &
Technology University.
[email protected]
