Education

By Shivangi Sharma and Pragya Jain

Ministry of Women and Child Development on National Girl Child Day announced an initiative called Establishment of Chairs in the Universities in the name of eminent administrators, artists, scientists and social reformers on National Girl Child Day, earlier this year. Launched with the assistance of the University Grant Commission,  the ministry has announced 10 Chairs in different fields with an aim to carry out research activities to encourage young girls and women. Statement released says that the main objective of the initiative is to inspire women to pursue higher education and to achieve excellence in their area of work.

The Chairs proposed by UGC and approved by the Ministry are as under:

(Source: Press Information Bureau)

The proposed Chairs are to be established for a period of 5 years as per guidelines and have financial implication of Rs. 50 lakh per year. The total expenditure for establishment of 10 chairs will be approximately Rs. 5 crore per annum as per the statement.

“Academic functions of the Chairs will be to engage in research and, in turn, contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the area of the study, strengthen the role of university/academics in public policy making and to design and execute short-term capacity-building programmes for teachers in higher education focused towards the designated discipline of the Chair. The other academic functions will be to provide a forum for inter-university/ inter- collegiate Post Graduate and Research level dialogues, discussion meetings, seminars/summer & winter schools, publish articles/research papers/reports/books/ monograms and participate in teaching and Ph.D programme of the Department or School in which it is located” it said.

The statement further said that the University will review the progress of the Chair annually and submit a final report on the activities and outcome of the Chair to the UGC after five years. However, the UGC may undertake the exercise of reviewing the Chair for its continuance, at any stage.

Shivangi Sharma and Pragya Jain

Data for 2018-19 All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) shows that there are more females at campuses in eight out of sixteen undergraduate and postgraduate programs in 127 institutions of national importance but female scholars number only 24% of them. According to the survey, there are more females pursuing science and medicine at undergraduate level while in BCom, there are 99 females per 100 males on campus. Women also outnumber men in graduating at UG, PG, PG Diploma and MPhil level. 

Dominating programs like B.A., B.Ed., B.Sc. nursing, M.A., M.Com. and M.Sc., females have shown slight growth in participation in higher education. A shift on the side of women is seen with an increase in programs like medical with 60.6%, Arts with 50.3% and Science with 51% of total enrolment. Participation at postgraduate level has also increased at M.A., M.Sc. and M.Com. during the last five years. 

But the figures are static when it comes to female scholars at institutions like IITs, NITs, AIIMS IISERs among others. There has been a continuous decline in MTech where the number of females have dropped to 64 per 100 males and enrolment. In law the number has dropped at 33.7%, in BTech at 28% and in BE at 28.86% which shows a very large gender gap in professional programs. Even though improvement is marked from 58 females per 100 males to 75 in MBA courses and 64 to 70 in BCA, a significant gender gap in these courses is still concerning. 

As per the report, there is an increase in students opting for professional programs like management, law, computer application, medicine, pharmacology. B.B.A., B.Pharm., B.Sc. nursing, M.B.B.S., LL.B., B.Ed., M.Com. have recorded all-time high in enrolment. MBA, BCom and BCA are next in line. But traditional engineering and arts programmes have continued to slide.

Even though the data doesn’t show any ground breaking record on increase in participation of women at scholar and professional level, the increase in enrolment at numerous programs especially the ones traditionally dominated by male show that gender stereotyping of courses are being discarded by women and the numbers will in coming future will grow at a faster rate.