Education and Empowerment

I am currently reading Sudha Murty's Wise and Otherwise. In one of the stories she talks about educated Indian girls who are harassed by their husbands and in-laws and wonders why these girls are so submissive? Why doesn't their education empower them? She does talk about building confidence among girls and I totally agree with her. From my perspective, in a poor nation like ours, education is a ticket to a better life. We slog to get the highest rank, so that we can get a good job and live a better life, which basically translates to making more money. And with a huge population like ours, even a 90% score seems insufficient to get us anywhere. Obviously in this whole struggle of survival no one has the time to talk about the basic code of life. Moreover, even though many of us might be earning more and sending our daughters to schools, in how many households are the daughters still expected to help in the kitchen, while the sons are not? (There's nothing wrong with girls working in kitchen, but so should boys. every individual needs to be self-reliant). Basically, in many households you will still see a difference in the treatment of sons and daughters. So how will the girls get any kind of confidence, if it's not talked about or if they are not treated as being capable? This also reminds me once again of the movie Education.... If the message being sent is that the purpose of getting an education is to get a job, make money and find a good husband, then obviously nothing else is going to stick in that mind.

For that matter over a period of time many of my assumptions people and education have been proven to be incorrect. My parents would always say that highly educated people are more humble, more open-minded and that education changes your overall attitude and makes you a better person. To my horror, I have found that this generalization is not entirely true. A degree does not mean anything. It is not the same as education!!!!