Co-education means boys and girls receiving education together in one and the same institution. Co-education is in vogue in all advanced countries of the world like England, America, Russia, France and even Turkey. Our constitution has done away with all discrimination on the basis of religion, class or sex.
Woman in India today enjoys full freedom. She enjoys equal status with man. She has a right to vote just as man has. She is eligible for the highest position in the state. She is no longer the slave of man. She is no longer a house drudge. She has come into her own.
We have to provide her educational facilities equal with man. We have not enough women’s colleges to accommodate all the female aspirants after higher education nor does our present budget allow us to open separate women’s colleges.
Girls, therefore, perforce must join co-educational institutions, if they are not to be left behind in the race for progress. Girls also prefer to join co-educational institutions not for the sake of romance and sight-seeing but because they are better staffed and better-equipped. The staff in a purely women’s institution is seldom stable for as soon as a woman lecturer is married, she resigns and goes away to the station of her husband. The education of the girl scholars thus suffers in consequence.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Our orthodox brethren assert that free mixing of boys and girls would lead to romance and love marriages which usually have an unhappy ending. Such fears are unfounded and baseless. In a coeducational institution, boys and girls try to behave better in the presence of others.
The college life becomes sweet and charming and attendance also improves. Men and women mix freely in trains, buses, cinemas, places of worship, in the family and fairs. Heaven won’t fall if they mix in colleges.
When there is a large number of girls in a college, they don’t attract attention. The novelty is worn off. Familiarity blunts the edge of curiosity and makes the whole thing look common place. Co-education improves the moral tone of the students.
There is also a distinct improvement in the University results, since co-education brings about a healthy rivalry. The cost of education to the State is reduced. The same staff, the same building and furniture, can satisfy the educational needs of both the sexes.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In a co-educational institution, boys and girls mix freely at the debates, in associations, clubs and societies attached to the institution and thus have ample opportunities of understanding one another’s viewpoint. As public standard of morality is raised, co-education may be introduced with advantage. The girls are prepared to rub shoulders with the boys.