The recently released Health Ministry survey that showed a direct correlation between the nutritional status of children and their mothers’ education is a further stroke for the case of women’s education.

Why there is a lack of investment in Women’s education in India?

• Inefficiency and inability in the government machinery.
• Lack of political will.

What does the recent Comprehensive national nutrition Survey(CNNS) say?

• The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey(CNNS) held between 2016-18 studied 1.2 lakh children.
• The three core indicators of nutritional deficiency among infants and young children

are diet diversity, meal frequency, and minimum acceptable diet.

• • It demonstrated that with higher levels of schooling for a mother was related to children receiving better diets.
  • Only 11.4% of children whose mothers did not receive schooling received adequately diverse meals.
  • While 31.8% of whose mothers finished Class XII received diverse meals.

• While 9.6% of children, whose mothers had finished school education got minimum acceptable diets

• But only 3.9% of children whose mothers had no school education received minimum acceptable diets.

Empirical research and Projects suggesting the importance of investment in Education:

• Nobel laureate Amartya Sen reasons, has clearly shown how the relative aspect and regard for women’s well being is strongly influenced by women’s literacy and educated participation in decisions within and outside the family. 
• In the late 1990s, Tamil Nadu along with the Danish International Development Agency launched a mass rural literacy project in Dharmapuri, then considered backward, riding largely on local leaders, most of them women. 
• The project in Dharmapuri which used local art to educate the local women leader paid a rich dividend as people’s outpatient attendance in Primary health centre increased.
• States such as Kerala with a high literacy rate (male and female) also sit at the top of the table on development indicators.

There is a body of compelling evidence for the government to focus on improving female literacy. No other task can assume greater urgency for a nation striving to improve its performance on all fronts. As former American First Lady Michelle Obama said, “Because we know that when girls are educated, their countries become stronger and more prosperous.”