Winter 2004

Volume 33
Number 2

Balancing Act

Women's Education and Development
By Karen S. Rowan, Editor, On Campus With Women

In her recent essay "Women's Education: A Global Challenge," Martha C. Nussbaum argues that the relationship between economic development and women's education is often misunderstood. She contends that development theorists too often assume that economic "growth alone will provide for other human needs." In truth, women's education is often overlooked despite economic growth. For example, Nussbaum points to the Indian states of Gujarat and Haryana, which have not substantially improved basic education despite economic growth. By comparison, 99 percent of adolescent boys and girls in the state of Kerala are literate, despite a slow economic growth in the state.

While economic development does not necessarily lead to improved education, literacy certainly can and does open opportunities for women. Indeed, Nussbaum cites evidence that literacy is a key factor in improving women's employment opportunities, political participation, access to the legal system, and control over population growth. Despite the far-reaching impact of literacy on women's lives, she notes that male literacy rates surpass female literacy rates by fifteen percentage points or more in 43 of 162 countries evaluated in the Human Development Reports produced by the United Nations Development Programmes.

Beyond basic education, women with secondary and university education are "far more likely to be able to influence debates at a national level as well as to have access to the most influential and higher-paying jobs." But women's access to and participation in education is even more limited at the secondary and tertiary levels, and the gaps between men and women at these levels are growing. Restrictions on married women's participation in higher education, as well as many families' reluctance to send their daughters away to university, help to shrink an already small pool of women qualified to attend university. These challenges only highlight the need for more university-educated women who can, as Nussbaum argues, "influence debates at a national level as well as...have access to the most influential and higher-paying jobs."

To this end, Nussbaum points to the Asian University for Women (AUW), to be built in Bangladesh, as an innovative institution seeking both to increase women's access to higher education and to improve political, economic, and cultural conditions for women in Asia.

Liberal Education and Women as Agents of Change
In particular, Nussbaum highlights the liberal education curriculum at the core of AUW's design. While vocational and professional education will be an important part of AUW's curriculum, the liberal education framework aims to develop a broad range of cognitive, intellectual, personal, and civic abilities and growth. In other words, AUW students will not merely learn technical or vocational skills. They will also develop critical thinking, complex problem solving, and quantitative reasoning abilities; moral reasoning; cultural appreciation; service- and community-orientation; and leadership skills. Nussbaum also points to the intrinsic value of education in developing imagination and cultivating powers of thought and self-expression. To that end, part of AUW's mission is to educate the "whole woman," including personal, spiritual, and cultural growth as well as intellectual and professional development. The University aims to encourage imagination, deep thinking, and communication, for those are abilities its graduates will need to be leaders in their communities. The liberal education curriculum is central to this goal.

Although other countries in the region have long boasted women's universities, Mary Meier notes that AUW's liberal education curriculum and residential campus sets it apart from existing institutions. The vision of the University is to create a supportive, empowering community of learners, a vision that is shaping how planners design the curriculum, admissions policies, campus buildings and infrastructure, and career placement.

Traditional Western liberal arts disciplines will have a place at AUW, though Asian histories, cultures, traditions, and modes of learning will be central to the curriculum. Most importantly, student learning will be grounded in real word contexts and problems, thus preparing students to help solve critical problems in their communities upon graduation.

Because an important part of the University's mission is to provide higher educational opportunities to students who show promise but who are economically or educationally disadvantaged, the Access Program will offer additional preparation in English literacy, mathematics, and computer skills for some entering students. The first three years of study will be grounded in liberal learning but will incorporate disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. The last two years will be focused on professional, graduate studies in four fields: environmental engineering and sustainable development, education, management, and public policy.

AUW will draw on an existing network of private schools throughout the region to recruit students but will also seek to develop connections with other potential feeder schools. Initially, the University will focus on recruiting students from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Eventually, recruitment will extend to other Muslim countries where women's access to higher education has traditionally been limited. The University will also reach out to refugees who traditionally have difficulty accessing higher education.

Currently, planners of the Asian University for Women are translating vision to reality. The International Support Committee brings together private and public sector leaders to garner global support for the University and to elect the Board of Trustees. The Asian University for Women Support Foundation, a New York not-for-profit corporation, is charged with marshalling organizational, financial, and intellectual resources in the United States and elsewhere.

Set to launch the undergraduate program in 2006, AUW will not be content simply to educate its own students. Rather, the University is setting its sights on making an impact in Asia well beyond its own campus. Indeed, its mission is "to graduate women who will be skilled and innovative professionals, service-oriented leaders in the businesses and communities in which they work and live, and promoters of intercultural understanding and sustainable human and economic development in Asia and throughout the world."