THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education,” is a class statement made by Los Angeles-based writer and teacher Melissa Berton soon after she won the Oscar for the Best Documentary in 2019 for the short, ‘Period. End of Sentence’ that she produced with filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi. Her words hit campuses in the capital city too and triggered the youth to set forward the proposal for a periods-friendly campus.
Now, the state government has issued an order directing universities under the Higher Education Department to allow female students to claim an additional condonation of 2% attendance in each semester as ‘menstruation benefits’.
The decision of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) to grant menstrual leave for female students struck a chord with Minister for Higher Education R Bindu who applauded the initiative and declared that the state government will introduce menstrual leave in all universities under her department.
The latest to join the revolutionary move of allocating period leave is APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU), which has decided to introduce menstrual leaves in affiliated colleges under it.
As per a source with KTU, the meeting of the Board of Governors held on Tuesday considered the representations by the university union and is awaiting the syndicate meeting to approve the leave details officially. The source said the order will be implemented in a total of 145 colleges under the university. “The KTU syndicate is yet to decide the percentage of leave to be granted to students in each semester,” an official said.
While bouquets of appreciation pour in for Cusat, and rightly so, it was in fact a bunch of students from the College of Engineering Trivandrum, who came forward with the idea of menstrual leave last year.
The proposal to make CET ‘Menstrual Friendly Campus was made in one of the college union’s manifestos put forward by woman representatives Ankita Jazy and Anagha Sivakumar in January 2022.
Pioneers behind the change
The College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET) union team is overjoyed with decision of minister R Bindu. For, they had been knocking at the doors of authorities concerned with the proposal for the past year.
Kottayam native Ankita Jazy and Ernakulam native Anagha Sivakumar, though hailing from different districts, have the same tale to tell as girls — menstrual cramps. The entire subject was considered taboo inside the campus. However, the two girls changed all that when they stood for college elections as lady representatives and proposed a ‘menstrual-friendly campus’ in their manifesto.
“The painful cramps always made us wish for getting at least a hour to spare so that we could rest. We conducted a survey on the campus in which we enquired about menstruation and its pain. For girls, it was a need of the hour, as many said at least one day’s leave was vital during their period cycle. For boys, it was awareness about how pain affects a woman mentally and physically. Our mission was to turn CET into a period-friendly campus for the present and upcoming batches,” says Ankita, one of the lady representatives and applied electronic graduate (2018-2022 batch). They approached the college principal initially who informed them that KTU is the decision maker.This led the girls to approach respective KTU officials and even ministers with their proposals.
Period leave implementation
When Ankita completed her course in June last year, it was the sole fight for Anagha, an EEE student (2019-2023 batch) and her friends who get furnished with their demands. The union members carried out detailed research to know more about the period leave which did not exist in educational institutions in Kerala though it was prevalent in other Indian universities.
“From references, we found that Bihar was the only state in the country that has government-approved period leaves. Also, we came across the fact that the Government Girls School, Tripunithura, in Ernakulam had given students period leave during the time of their annual examination and allowed them to write the exam later. To know the response from the college, we conducted a period leave implementation survey for boys and girls in the age group of 18-25 pursuing BTech, MTech, MBA, MCA. We received responses from 851 participants and 98.8% agreed with the fact that menstrual leave is necessary and the only concern raised was to keep a check on its misuse once implemented. In the survey, 89% was of the opinion that gender disparity is not introduced once period leaves culminate,” states Anagha who had submitted their detailed period leave implementation report to Minister R Bindu in June 2022.
The youngster who is entering her final semester adds the KTU decision and the minister’s order on Thursday to allocate period leave to colleges under her department fulfilled her dream, and wishes similar measures are taken in schools too. The youth says that period leaves are a must-have on college campuses due to different biological conditions.
“The 75% attendance for examinations was made mandatory in 2019 and many menstruating students found it difficult when they have to take leave due to menstrual issues. Thus this idea has been discussed inside the campus since then. When we were running the campaign, we received many enquiries from other campuses across the state, including Cusat. Though it was a college union decision, we did not politicise the topic but rather supported everyone with our information on period leave as it is a humane subject to deal with. We are happy that finally KTU has given a nod to our proposal. It was a little saddening for us when we saw the social media post of the higher education minister appreciating a particular student’s wing when it is we who came up with the proposal first. But we are happy that our efforts bore fruits,” says Anagha.