NEW DELHI: Enrolling more female students will be one of the important criteria for higher educational institutions aspiring for autonomy status.
With only 35 per cent female students enrolling themselves for higher education, the Union ministry aims to increase the number. This would also play a major role in fund allocation, said a senior government official requesting anonymity.
Sources in the HRD Ministry said that this new rule for higher educational institutions, applying for autonomy, would come in force from the next academic year—that is, around May-June this year.
As per officials, although the initial enrolments of women may be more in terms of percentage, the actual figure is much lower as most of them do not complete their graduation or post-graduation level education due to various issues.
“This is where the institutions will have to work. They need to create the right ambience for the women to complete their formal education,” said a University Grants Commission official.
According to the All India Survey on Higher Education, released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2016, the enrolment in higher education in 2015-16 is estimated to be 33 million. Of this, 19.9 million were male and 13.1 million female. On January 25 this year, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar claimed that the government is working on creating a “benchmark standards”, and institutions which meet it, would be given autonomy similar ones given
to IIMs.
“We have guaranteed autonomy to IIMs. Other institutes which do well would get similar status. And this is just a beginning. Our government is against micromanagement and excess control and believes in giving more autonomy to academic institutions. And this freedom would ensure these institutions to grow,” Javadekar had stated.
In his budget speech on February 1 this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the colleges would be identified based on accreditation and ranking, and given autonomous status. A revised framework would be put in place for outcome-based accreditation and credit based programmes.