HYDERABAD: In line with the Centre’s efforts towards girls education and their empowerment and keeping up with its mission along the same lines, the Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad has decided to offer 33 per cent reservation to women students from the ensuing 2018-19 academic year onwards.The horizontal reservation will allow to push up the enrolment of women students in the varsity that stands at 24 per cent in the Hyderabad campus and 29 across other campuses across the country.
“It is the mandate of the varsity to give preference to women education and thereby to empower them. Women students constitute 24 per cent of the total population in the MANUU at the moment,” said Prof A Ravinder Nath, dean academic affairs, MANUU. However, this is not the first time that the central university has done something out of the box for women students. Since last year, they have been wavering off the first-semester fee of all women students.
“This is to encourage girls from economically poor backgrounds to pursue higher education without having to worry about the excessive fee,” said Nath.In addition, MANUU also gives 100 per cent reservation for hostels for women students. In fact, women students residing in the hostel have been on 8 am to 7:30 pm curfew, during which they can not go out of the hostels, including the library. Several students, both men and women, have dubbed such regulations as an infringement of their rights and even moral policing.
“We have a fixed deadline for girls and even though it is earlier than the boys, it is for their own safety. It is also reassuring to the parents. Students may not like it but it’s for their own good and they don’t have a say because this is what the rule book says,” said a faculty. Unperturbed by the allegation, the varsity has proposed a residential facility for girls at its Haryana off campus. Admission notification for the Hyderabad campus will be issued in February first week.