Ўзбекистон республикаси олий ва ўрта махсус таълим вазирлиги ўзбекистон республикаси гендер тенглиги комиссияси

The importance of Higher education for women.
Encouraged by lived experiences of brave people we have met and known in our rich career and academic life, we see a number of devoted women to the cause of educational improvement in Uzbekistan. One of the examples made today’s society interested in women’s issues about the challenges authoritarian models of leadership and stereotypical portrayals of women in the media in Uzbekistan. Defining leadership in terms of political power, wealth, land ownership, social standing, and other traditionally authoritarian views of leadership, the men began the workshop believing that, in general, women are not capable of taking on leadership roles. To challenge this perspective of leadership, the women participants came together to achieve a common goal: to show the men that women are effective leaders in social, economic, and political spheres. As the reforms progressed the countries began to rethink the theories about leadership and became more aware of the participatory, inclusive leadership styles employed by women leaders throughout their community. The leadership programs and initiatives organized and funded by government has been particularly empowering for women’s participation in making suitable changes in the society. Today, New Uzbekistan’s young women can think, speak, and care for themselves. They have wishes to pursue their own ideas and dreams.
Supporting women in society and giving them opportunities to freely participate in social and political life, in turn, will get rid of the problem of inequality in society. As Walersten said, by increasing opportunities, people have the power to get rid of social, economic and societal inequality [1]. Here Pathak also says that empowering women will motivate them to decide to get education [2]. Economic empowerment refers to initiatives aimed at women's self-sufficiency and serves as one of the most important factors to combat poverty [3]. Furthermore, women's political empowerment allows women to make their own policies provides an opportunity to participate in the management of the state by conducting[4].
The Constitution of Uzbekistan guarantees that: “everyone shall have the right to education. The state shall guarantee free secondary education. Schooling shall be under state supervision. [5].” According to geographical distribution of higher education is 50 % of it located in capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. Furthermore, women are 48,5 less than men 51,5 in General Education [6]. Most important reasons are shown as the profession choice for girls is often made by parents, priority in receiving higher education is given to sons (especially for paid education), based on existing stereotypes girls strive to acquire profession in social sphere that would be useful in family life, unequal geographical distribution of higher educational institutions on the territory of Uzbekistan, unwilling of parents to send girls to study far away from home, earlier marriages compared to men and reproductive burden of women. Moreover, pursuing higher education is significant issue for 18-20 years due to high tuition costs, cost of accommodation, transportation and also most frequent marriage age which reduce opportunities to be educated. Consequently, it causes women’s unemployment or a stable trend of female domination in nursing (75.2% ) and in teaching secondary education (70.7%) which were significantly lower-paid (SUM 1,038,161 in 2016) than other jobs including finance, information technology and transport[7]. This imbalance might become a major obstacle to competitiveness in the labor market.
The most important key in women empowerment is to concentrate on education, awareness, self-realization and self development of women in our communities. Empowering women provides a more flexible schedule and gives them more control and freedom to make their own decisions, enables them to be true to themselves as well as their beliefs and values. In summary, Uzbekistan’s new reforms have been supporting women and girls’ enrollment in higher education to support to promote gender balance in students’ choice of academic subjects and areas of study (e.g, setting enrollment quotas or providing
scholarships, internships, mentoring programs, and incentives to boost women’s entry into nontraditional sectors) academic subjects and areas of study (e.g., setting enrollment quotas or providing scholarships, internships, mentoring programs, and incentives to boost women’s entry into nontraditional sectors).