BENGALURU: In a bid to foster gender equality, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has urged educational institutions to appoint ‘gender champions’ for the new academic year.
In a letter, UGC emphasised that the gender champions, above the age of 16 years, will help cultivate an inclusive environment in schools, colleges and academic institutions, especially for girls, and provide a safe environment, which is the need of the hour.
The roles and responsibilities of gender champions will include providing overall guidance to the peer group in integrating different genders in all activities of the institution in the form of focused group discussions, debates, poster competitions and more.
They must also popularise phone numbers of services such as police helplines, women’s helplines and hospitals among students. Several other duties have been listed under the official notification formulated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The latest data from the UGC showed that universities and colleges updated gender champions back in the 2021-22 academic year with no information on the following years. In 2021-22, Karnataka, which has the highest number of HEIs in the country and a high college density, had only 11 universities and five colleges with updated information about the students.
According to the notification, gender champions should be selected by the head of the Institution in consultation with the student body. However, many higher educational institutions failed to comply. “Depending on the strength of the educational institution, one or more teachers will be assigned to function as nodal teachers to facilitate the activities of the gender champions,” according to the guidelines. From the available data, only Jain (Deemed-to-be-Univeristy) had elected 45 boys and 42 girls as their gender champions.
The UGC on April 29 reiterated to all vice-chancellors and principals to complete the online compliance.