ABSTRACT
The landscape of educated and accomplished women widens and deepens by the day even as the figures and statistics darken that horizon every time a new study is completed and made public. Pakistan was a member of the global Education for All movement, with the noble objective of addressing the problem of gender disparity in primary and secondary schools and eliminating this by 2015. The cost implication for poor families in rural areas is another impediment to education for females. Teaching and the practice of medicine are the two jobs considered ‘acceptable’ for educated females. While medicine is a much coveted and often unattainable option, teaching remains the economic mainstay of women with access to education. Dilshad Ashraf points out that academics, educational researchers and policymakers are agreed that increasing the number of female teachers is an effective strategy in improving the emolument and participation of females in education.
