I never thought to look at these two novel in this context. Dicken's uses Gradgrind satirically to point of the flaws in England's public education system by exposing the his philosophy that children only needed to know the facts and figures; the whole child and a real education were unnecessary. Gilead holds to the same belief in that the women were only taught what it was believed they needed to know. What they learned was controlled.
The consequence of one class being more educated than another is obvious in both novels. People denied education are 'stuck.' The 'lower class' we see in Dicken's novels have no hope of anything more than they have, unless of course they're lucky enough to run into a benevolent benefactor.
The same thing hold true in Gilead. They don't want the women to know another way of life, and they certainly don't want them to be able to research or read about another life. Education means power......... and both of these systems attempted or succeeded in limiting or denying education.