University Grants Commission fund cut for women’s studies centres will lead to complete disruption of teaching and research functions across WSCs
Dr (Mrs) Manasvi M Kamat
Women’s Day was internationally celebrated on March 12. Within a week of the celebration two contradictory developments were witnessed in the higher education sphere pertaining to women -- one in the US and the other here in India.
The authorities of Women’s and Gender Studies Board at the Oklahoma University (OU) announced three outstanding women will be recognized with Courage Awards for being the champions for social justice. This Women’s Board is an interdisciplinary department that seeks to enhance students’ knowledge of gender roles and relations across cultures and history and now marching to scale up. Women studies related programs in the OU investigate the intersection of gender and diverse phenomena as politics, religion, society, economics, war, communication, music, art, family life and popular culture.
As the OU is busy preparing for recognition to individuals who have gone above and beyond in the fight for gender justice, the University Grants Commission (UGC) in India announced drastic cut in the funding for Women’s Studies Centers (WSCs) by almost 40 percent and slicing the budget of Universities for such centers by half. The UGC has proposed a new set of guidelines for establishing, funding and conducting the activities of WSCs in universities and colleges called as the March 2019 Guidelines issued on 12th of this month.
The WSCs have special focus on most marginalized and disadvantaged women in the society. Around 80 universities in the country run WSC with UGC’s financial assistance as per the list on the UGC’s website out of the 160 odd financially dependent on it. The UGC expects that the centers will highly focus on the importance of women in the social and global perspective and will develop a curriculum which will focus on the needs of the Indian women inclusive of the society. Such WSCs are also expected to suggest methods to build an environment which will help women take more decisive and leadership based roles are diverse sectors.
Though the new guidelines have sought proposals for setting up of new centers with the existing ones required to comply with the new requirements, they also mean a ‘drastic cut in annual fund allocation it states that the budget is capped at mere Rs 35 lakh for each WSC at an university and Rs 25 lakh for each college. Earlier, the established centres were divided into different phases like phase I, II, and advanced centres, with salary budgets ranging from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 60 lakh. Under the old scheme, phase I centers receive Rs 47.5 lakh per annum, phase II centers receive Rs 64 lakh and the advanced centers receive Rs 75 lakh per annum. There is no mention of phases in the new norms.
With only Rs 15 lakh earmarked for the salary of the staff, these drastic reductions in the budget will have a huge implication on the teaching, research, outreach, staff deployment, and other activities of the center. This is quite contradictory to the intentions of the UGC as the WSCs were designed to act as catalysts in promoting the empowerment of women through teaching, research, action, fieldwork, and extension.
The new guidelines shift the emphasis of such centers from teaching and research to extension, discouraging the university system from teaching courses in women’s studies. The previous guidelines spoke in detail about teaching and training in WSCs and had laid out many details on how degrees from such centres can be administered. They also referred to fellowships for research projects, doctoral fellowships and highlighted the different phases to go through to start a department and build it to the level of an advanced centre. The new guidelines talk only about certificate courses and the incorporation of undergraduate courses without any mention of PG programs and research programs currently offered in more than 50 institutions.
This act of the UGC is also in contradiction to its earlier stand on the subject. In August 2017 UGC had claimed that there was no proposal to cut funding or support to WSCs. The new guidelines mean a cut in annual fund allocation ranging between Rs 12.5 lakh to Rs 40 lakh depending on the type of centre. More worse, as many as two project officers, four non-teaching staff and a Professor-Director are all to be paid out of Rs 1.3 lakh per month. This type of deductions would certainly lead to dissolution or reduction of paid positions for faculty disturbing the academic and research programs mid-way.
The WSCs have been in existence for long in India. The first WSC was established at the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai in 1974 and not more than half a dozen were added at various universities till the mid-80s.
The WSC at JNU was established only in 2001. The 11th Financial Plan envisaged upgrading WSCs into full-fledged departments, the 12th Plan aimed to strengthen them by categorizing based on capacities.
As much as Rs 198.15 crore was allotted to the 155 WSCs dependent on the UGC grant at the time and it was planned to set up at least 10 new centers per year. The new guidelines have now put the growing trend of the WSCs on a ventilator.
