This monograph is guided by f

Highlighted by sensational titles such as "The endangered sex" (Miller, 1981) or "More than 100 million women are missing" (Sen, 1992), studies have long drawn attention to the unfavourable life chances of females versus males in various parts of East and South Asia.

The drive for a rapid development in the education of women came largely from a perception summed up aptly in .the following statement by Mayhew: "women