According to Unicef, gender equity means that women and men should enjoy equal rights, opportunities and protection. It stands for recognising a person’s opportunities and rights in all areas of life regardless of his or her gender. In the same way, ensuring gender equity in education means ensuring equal status and rights of female and male students in access to education and co-curricular activities. And Bangladesh is one of the South Asian countries that seek to ensure gender equity in education.

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS), the participation of female students in primary level education in the country is 50.75%, and at the secondary level this rate is 51.65%. Female students’ participation is only 36 per cent among the university goers. At the postgraduate level, this rate drops to only 30 per cent.

This shows that female students lag behind in higher education. But, why is the number of female students in higher education so low? In 52 years of independence, have we really achieved gender equity in higher education?  Hence, I would chiefly blame their families and socio-economic situations for women’s declining participation rate in higher education. Most women are still dependent on men for economic status and they are not self-reliant.

In a patriarchal society like ours, a family usually tend to spend on a daughter less than half of what it would spend on a son for their higher education. Many of my female classmates have experienced almost a similar thing. Most of them are either married or about to get married. None of those girls who got married before or after the SSC examinations were financially independent.

And most of them did not get a university education. They might have been forced to quit their studies after marriage due to family pressures. If married female students drop out like this, then we cannot say that we have established gender equity in higher education. The number of girls who overcome these social barriers and get the opportunity of higher education is very low. Besides, sometimes it is seen that female students receiving higher education are taunted by people, which creates another barrier for them.

Despite that, I believe that Bangladesh is earnestly striving to maintain gender equity at educational intuitions. However, there are some social issues that heavily impede this progress. Such problems should be overcome. And we need to promote gender equity and create awareness among people in this regard. Thus, Bangladesh can strive to establish 100% gender equity in higher education and in all other spheres of life. 

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The writer is a student of Govt. Teachers’ Training College, Dhaka