Ministry of HRD to celebrate International Women’s Day in Schools and Colleges
New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhrial ‘Nishank’ has said that to take forward the momentum of empowerment of girls and women through education, the Ministry of HRD will celebrate the International Women’s Day (IWD) in schools and colleges across the country. He further said that the government has launched a special theme-based focused campaign from March 1 to 7 in the run-up to the International Women’s Day on March 8.
The HRD Minister has said that the government has taken several game-changing initiatives since 2014 for the education of the girl child. This is one of the reasons for the success of the scheme of Beti Bachao Padhao whereby the Gross Enrolment Ratio of girls across all levels of education is now higher than boys. At the elementary level, GER is 94.32 % as against 89.28% for boys. At the secondary level, it is 81.32 % as compared to 78 %.
He has said that the HRD Ministry has decided to take further various activities to encourage female students to excel in their lives and establish that their gender is never a hindrance to excellence. UGC will conduct round table discussions and take up several other programmes on women empowerment on various themes in about 40 central universities around the country among several other activities to be taken up.
He exhorted the educational institutions to focus on women achievers during classroom instruction. Nishank informed that to nurture the leadership qualities and confidence in girl students, the Ministry has decided to designate a girl student as class monitor “Main Hoon Monitor” for at least half of the academic school session of the year 2020-21 and beyond.
He further informed that a Self-Defence Olympiad will be organised for girls at school level on the lines of Yoga Olympiad. To ensure the safety and security of girls, Self defence training is imparted to girls of class VI to XII belonging to government schools.
The Culture and Theatre Clubs in colleges and universities will be encouraged to organise nukkad natak, mime shows etc on women’s issues. The minister also emphasized that all colleges and universities will prominently display Women Helpline Numbers at different places on their respective campuses.
Nishank said that to motivate girl students, special morning assemblies will be organised once a week in schools throughout the year. In these assemblies, talks on women achievers in different fields, role play, thought of the day, group songs on women empowerment, awards/recognition to the girl students who have performed well in different fields such as academics, sports, dance, music, arts, social service and novel areas will be included.
The minister informed that the schools are also being requested to honour women faculty members and staff for their distinguished service for the organization. Educational institutions will also organize essay writing contests on prominent/inspirational women of the district where they are located. He added that in higher educational institutions, the Gender Studies Cells in coordination with UGC will conduct seminars on gender bias and stereotyping, gender equality and women’s right.
The UGC in association with WCD Ministry has decided to establish ten Chairs in different universities in the name of Eminent Women personalities in various fields. Women Studies Centres with special focus on most marginalised and disadvantaged women in the society are being set up in Universities and Colleges.
For supporting a single girl child in higher education, Swami Vivekananda Single Girl Child Scholarship for Research in Social Science was started in 2014-15. UGC has provided support for eight exclusive women universities.
The Government has decided to increase female enrolment in B. Tech. Programmes of IITs from the current 8% to 14% in 2018-19, 17% in 2019-20 and 20% in 2020-21 by creating supernumerary seats.
The Government has also decided to increase female enrolment from existing 14% to 20% over a period of 2-4 years by creating supernumerary seats in undergraduate programmes of National Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur.
Accordingly, 835 supernumerary seats were created in IITs in the year 2018-19 and 1122 seats in 2019-20. 673 supernumerary seats were created in NITs and IIEST in the academic year 2018-2019.
