Neelam Kumar
CSIR-NISTADS
India
Email: neelam_nistads@yahoo.com/
kumarneelam28@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
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Gender-based disadvantages of a patriarchal culture continue even in the twenty-first century
India.
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Numerically, the Indian higher education system is one of the largest in the world, with 659
universities (out of which only around six are women’s universities) and approximately 4500
women’s colleges out of about 35,539 under-graduate colleges.
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Modern education for women in India began in the early years of the nineteenth century and
by the 1880s universities started admitting them. The progress was extremely slow until
1921, but there had been a phenomenal growth over the decades. India has a rich legacy of
eminent women in different fields.
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Hansaben Mehta as early as 1946, not only became a Vice Chancellor, but could make
outstanding contributions to the development of education in India.
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Despite consistent increase in the number of women students enrolled in higher education,
low number of women in academic positions especially at leadership level remains a
disturbing mark in Indian academia.
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Higher education system in India essentially reflect masculine ethos! Vertical as well as
hierarchical segregation in terms of gender remains a persistent phenomenon.
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Though, there is lack of systematic and comprehensive data, it is clear that only a handful of
women hold the positions of authority or decision-making, such as Rector or Dean.
INITIATIVES!
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Indian educational policies are somewhat away from serious or meaningful
gender concerns. A few meaningless efforts, with somewhat superficial
objectives, to enhance and increase the number of women manager in higher
education have recently been initiated. The persistent gender gap in education
reflects poorly on the Indian policies and the missing Minervas!
CAPACITY BUILDING FOR WOMEN
MANAGERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
DURING 2007-2012.
The specific objectives of the scheme of capacity building of Women Manager in
Higher Education are to develop a perspective plan and strategy for reducing the
gender gap in higher education system, to offer various training programmes at
different levels for stimulating women to aspire to become administrators etc. A
scheme has initiated by UGC and implemented to increase the participation of
women in higher education management for better gender balance; to sensitize
the higher education system through policies and procedures, and to develop
qualitative higher education by involving the unutilized pool of women capable of
becoming administrators.
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The specific objectives of the scheme are to develop:
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1) a perspective plan and strategy for reducing the gender gap in the higher
education system, to offer various training programmes at different levels to
women for stimulating them to
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aspire to become administrators, to develop relevant training materials for
various programmes in print and electronic
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media, to support gender positive initiatives such as gender equity cell and
developing sensitivity index, etc., to
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increase and support development of linkages among women managers in higher
education through networking etc.
some of the prevalent problems of women in higher
education in India
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Fewer in number! More women than ever enroll in higher education, yet the
number of women in senior leadership remains low.
Lower in number at higher echelons. as one moves up the ladder of power and
prestige, the female faces disappear face barriers at entry and at all stages of
the academic ladder
Women remain at the outer circle. For example, they are in low numbers in the
editorial boards.
The under-representation of women on boards and at the head of highereducation institutions reflects their difficulty to influence the policies.
Women are in low numbers in the prestigious positions, editorial boards and also lesser
recipients of awards. Even if women are nominated for research prizes however
unconscious bias and men running prize panels seems to be swaying award outcomes!
While 60% of the country’s university lecturers are women, the proportion falls to
40% at the level of associate professor and slumps to 20% at the professor level.
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The number of women in higher education is now equal to, and in many South
Asian countries surpasses, men at undergraduate level. Yet, this has not
translated into senior appointments and leaderships positions within higher
education institutions themselves. For example, only three per cent of vicechancellors in India were women (six of the 13 female vice-chancellors are at
women-only institutions) in the year 2002.
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A December 2009 UGC study found that of the country’s 431 recognized
universities, only 13 had women vice-chancellors – just 3% of the total – and just
under half of these were at women-only colleges.
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Another study later reported that there are nine women vice-chancellors against
the total number of 70, two pro pro vice-chancellors against 24, two
proctor/rector against 19, 50 deans against 367, six registrars against 77, 27
deputy registrars against 298, 67 assistant registrars against 504, five controller
of examination against 57, three finance officers against 66, 723 academic
council members against 42167, 31 members of finance committee against 400
and 31 members of finance boards against 400 in India
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Women head the exclusive women’s universities of India
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Numerically, the Indian higher education system is one of the largest in the world
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"glass ceiling effects” women are still under- represented in positions of power,
responsibility and leadership, despite the dramatic increase in their formal
employment over the last five decades.
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Even for women who succeed at university, the route to the top in academia is
difficult.
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In general, in India, it is very difficult to get gender segregated data.
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a survey was carried out reveals the same trend: women accounted for less than
10% vice chancellors, registrars. In senior academic administrative positions like
Deans, Directors, Heads of Departments etc., again there were less than 10%
women.
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Mainly where there were women, they came in because of the rotation system.
that the percentage of women at all levels of decision-making is very small, be it
in the administrative or academic hierarchy. In fact, as the level goes higher, the
percentage share of women goes down!
A TYPICAL CAREER GRAPH!
ENROLMENT: AN INCREASING TREND!
WOMEN RESEARCHERS: INCREASE BUT VERY
SLOW AND LOW!
FIGURE 1. PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN PROFESSORS AND EXECUTIVE HEADS IN SELECTED
COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES
POSSIBLE REASONS?
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gendered divisions of labour; gender bias and misrecognition; stereotypes of
management and masculinity; and work/life balance challenges.
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Recently structured interventions have been developed to encourage more
women to enter leadership positions in universities. These are based on the
assumption that “Often women think they are good at academics and there is no
need to get into administrative issues. Many don’t even think about leadership
roles. The UGC programme aims to build awareness among women about their
capacity to lead in higher education,”
A PICTURE IN EU!
NOT QUITE DIFFERENT!
Women do not get equal recognition in the field of science. The following figure illustrates this well:
Source: Indian Academy of Sciences
•In India the first graduate degrees were granted to women in 1883,
•Dr. Kadambini Basu received her medical degree in 1886 from Calcutta
University.
•Modern education for women in India began in the early years of
the nineteenth century and by the 1880s universities started
admitting them. Progress was extremely slow particularly until 1921.
•Female literacy crawled from 0.2 per cent in 1881 to 1.8 per cent in
1921.
•There was a relatively quicker pace after 1921 and a substantial
advance came about only after independence.
•Yet, the National Committee on Women's Education could register
a slow progress of women's education in the first decade of
independence.
•Analysis of documents pertaining to women’s education in India in
the period 1850–1920 has shown that the number of female
students in schools and colleges in India increased by a factor of
eight between 1881 and 1915. Till 1911, nowhere in British India
more than one per cent of the female population had access to
education at any level.
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The development strategy in independent India in the 1950s depended heavily
on the planning. Therefore, development plans were prepared for five years and
are referred to as the Five-Year Plans.
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The very First Plan (1951-56) of the Government gave some attention to women
but, as a subject of ‘welfare’.
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The shift in the approach from ‘welfare’ to ‘development’ of women could take
place only in the Sixth Plan (1980-85). The Sixth Five Year Plan for the first time
included a chapter on "Women and Development".
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Though the Fifth and the Sixth Five Year Plans talked of women’s education,
these did not stress the need for any planned programmes to ensure women’s
participation in science or technology.
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Gender-blindness is evident in all the other subsequent plans and policies related
to science. While addressing questions of equity in access to higher education, no
mention is made to specifically ensure that women have access to science
education. It is as if the gender component need not be considered while
discussing ways to strengthen science teaching or improving infrastructure.
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the report of the committee on the status of women, 1974 also provided a
broader perspective which led to a shift from a welfare approach to making
women active partners in the development process.
The policies and programmes related to women’s access to higher education (particularly
science and technology) and their career growth are often face critique and also held
responsible apart from the constraints discussed above.
The shortfalls are often attributed to the lack of clarity on the purpose of women’s education in
educational planning. For instance, the National Committee on Women’s Education (1956) set
up to scrutinize the special problems of women's education, on the one hand emphasized the
need to bridge the gap between the education of men and women and on the other reiterated
the traditional gender roles in society.
Similarly, all the other important commissions such as the University Education Commission
(1948-49); Secondary Education Commission (1952-53); National Commission on Women's
Education (1958); National Council for Women's Education; Baktavatsalam Committee
(1963); National Committee on Women's Education (1970) were hesitant in defining the aims
of women's education, and seem to have been caught in contradictory value systems while
defining the purpose of female education. The Draft National Policy on Education admitted
that although education had expanded in all sectors yet imbalances and inequalities
continued to exist.
By the 1970s, however, there was a growing awareness that gender is an important social
category, which needs to be taken into account in development planning. The Women's
Decade in India began in 1975 with an official report of the Committee on the Status of
Women in India. The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women (1974), better known
as the Towards Equality Report, set clear guidelines on the aims of female education. In
recent years there are various efforts by government bodies to also enhance women’s access
to science careers.
GLIMPSES OM WOMEN IN SCIENCE IN INDIA
In colonial India science education aimed at creating local pillars of support for the
colonial government.
Those days to think of a female Indian scientist was virtually impossible. It is only
in the twentieth century that some women could get some training in physics and
other basic sciences.
In the field of medicine of course a very limited opportunity opened up in 1880s
and one finds a few Indian women doctors like Kadambini Basu, Anandi Bai and
Hemvati Sen.
Yet, the number of women in science and medicine remained low over the years.
By 1890 women had secured admission to medical colleges or schools in Agra,
Bombay, Calcutta and Lahore.
During year 1941-42, the enrolment pattern in Indian universities for the shows
that the total number of girls enrolled for undergraduate course in science was 903
in comparison to 11, 217 boys. Only 83 girls were enrolled for a postgraduate
course in science in contrast to 1,321 boys. While in medicine their number was
778 against 6,093 boys, in the engineering only 1 was enrolled with 2,718 boys .
The debates, however, continued over the subjects taught to women. Even a
‘Committee on Differentiation of Curricula for Boys and Girls’ was established in
1964. Science and technology in India could witness expansion in the postIndependence era. What has been the situation of women?
Women participation in extramural R&D projects has increased significantly to 31% in 2009-10 from 13% in 2000-01 due to various
initiatives undertaken by the Government in S&T sector. In absolute terms, 1,324 women Principal Investigators (PI) during 2009-10 availed extramural
R&D support as against 232 in 2000-01.
AS ON 1ST APRIL 2010, THERE WERE 27,532 (14.3%) WOMEN OUT
OF TOTAL R&D PERSONNEL DIRECTLY ENGAGED IN R&D
ACTIVITIES
EMPLOYMENT PATTERN
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In all, there were 61,050 women employed in R&D establishments, which was
15.6% of the total employed in such establishments.
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The percentage of women by nature of activity was 12.7% (19,707) primarily
engaged in R&D activities, 14.9% (15,802) in auxiliary activities and 19.6%
(25,541) in administrative activities.
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By level of qualifications they were comprised of 18.7% Ph.Ds, 39.2% Post
Graduates, 31.6% Graduates and 10.5% Diploma Holders and other
qualifications.
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By field of science, it was noted that 29.9% were from natural sciences, 39.0%
were from engineering and technology, 14.8% were from medicine, 10.3% were
from agricultural sciences while 6.0% were with background in social sciences.
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Out of every 100 women employed in Central
Sector, 29.2% were engaged directly in R&D
activities, 28.1% were performing auxiliary activities
and 42.6% were providing administrative support.
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The percentage of women working for Administrative
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activities is quite high as compared to working for
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R&D and auxiliary activities.