Women empowerment through secondary education

ABSTRACT Women empowerment is a continuous process in which women have control over the physical and mental resources that include human intellectual, financial, the self, beliefs and moral attitudes. In other words according to Sen (Sen 1997), it is the capacity of self-expression. Even though empowering women prevails, programs aiming to enhance women empowerment continue to spring up all over the globe across different countries. Education being a backbone for a country's economic development, it is also a promising factor for women's empowerment. It is true that higher education provides girls the ability for better survival, avoids early marriage setups, mingling with prosocial peers along with strong social status. Secondary education provides a good pathway to promote the level of young women in the society and also they have the stability in their mental health. The effect of education may not be the same across the countries in the world, as there are differences in culture, locality, socio-economic conditions, geographical influences, etc. The objective of this paper is to analyse and understand how secondary education can enhance the strength of women in the society especially for the girls in Vellore district, Tamilnadu, India. The data has been collected from various schools in vellore and analysis is based on the results in HSC exam from girls higher secondary schools. The paper is concluded with the information that the secondary level education to the girls provides the kick starting for their empowerment.