In today’s gender-neutral time, do we need women centres of learning? A look at the literacy and enrolment rates at women’s institutions says we do.
Captain Ramya Kirti Gupta, 36 years, was the toast of the nation few months ago as part of the Air India operated historic longest (17 hrs) flight with all women crew from Delhi to San Francisco on the occasion of International Women’s Day. She was part of the four women crew in the cockpit. Gupta of course praises her university, Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, that sponsored her private pilot license, thus providing the necessary fuel to her passion for flying. You may say she has the talent, so she earned it. Gupta insists that had it not been a women’s university, she could have been distracted.
Delhi-based Ashima Upadhyay, 23 years, has studied in a co-educational institution but did her graduation and post graduation from a girl’s college and a women’s university. Now, an academic trainer, her research paper in post graduation was on the relevance of women’s universities in India in the contemporary time. “I chose the subject because studying at Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women’s University (SNDTWU), Mumbai made such a deep impact. Taking SNDTWU as the fulcrum of my research, my focus was on the need for women’s universities in India in a developing world. My research revealed that all the stakeholders including parents, students, teachers, community representatives and non-teaching staff believed that the university must still be a women’s university. Hence, I strongly support the fact that women’s learning institutions still hold due relevance and are the need of the hour.” In fact, Dr Reeta Sonawat, Head of PG Department of Human Development, SNDTWU, talks of a significant social revolution here. “The enrolment of minority students has increased significantly in the last decade in the university. Obviously, parents are opening up to women’s education and the fact that ours is a women’s only campus makes them feel more secure.”
RELEVANCE REFLECTS
Austrian author and Holocaust survivor, Viktor E Frankl, observes, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lie our growth and our freedom.” Dr Siddharth Shastri seems to echo this thought when he debated on the relevance of a women’s university in today’s time.
“Look around and you will get the answer. A women’s centre makes you feel rooted while giving you wings to fly. Our extra curricular activities does not include just Indian classical dance. It also includes horse riding, swimming, flying, judo, karate, malkhamb, Manipuri martial art, archery and shooting. We also have a basket ball court and a cricket ground. One of our students, Avni Chaturvedi, is one of the first three Indian women fighter pilots. So, yes, a woman’s centre of learning is still a requirement for facing the world with a chin up. Otherwise, we would not have 15,000 students. We started with just seven in 1935,”states Dr Shastri.
Dr Shastri should know as he is the Vice-President of Banasthali Vidyapith. He claims it to be the largest residential women’s university in the world. Spread across 860 acres with 45 hostels, Banasthali Vidyapith is 70 kms from Jaipur, Rajasthan. The deemed university offers courses in every discipline except medicine and runs classes from nursery to doctorate level.
Dr Swati Banerjee, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, argued her point while weighing the relevance with harsh numbers. According to the 2011 census of India, the literacy rate for men is 82.14 per cent and for women 65.46 per cent. The vast difference at the basic level itself breaks the myth of gender equity in the 21st century. Women constitute about 44.4 per cent of the total enrolment in higher education, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education, Government of India, 2011-12; which also shows a substantial gender disparity. This shows that lack of educational access, deprivation and inequity are still continuing realities.
Dr Banerjee continues, “Most women’s universities across the world were born out of a vision of gender justice, empowerment and inclusion of those women who would otherwise be denied access to higher education because of underlying patriarchy and intersecting deep rooted structural inequities. In India too, the women-only institutions emerged from such ideological moorings.” In recent times, there is an emphasis on women’s universities in countries like Bangladesh and Afghanistan. “The Asian University for Women in Bangladesh started as recently as 2012. In a country like India and many other South Asian countries, where there is still strong gender disparity, which is also reflected in literacy and enrolment rates in primary education and participation in higher education, all-women’s institutions still play a viable role towards inclusion of women in educational spaces,” observes Dr Banerjee.
SEGREGATION EMPOWERS
The crux of the matter, thus, while debating about its relevance is whether a women’s university empowers women in today’s complex times. Debi Ghosh, Lecturer of English, Tolani College of Commerce (co-educational institute), University of Mumbai, observes, “Today, when certain extremist groups vociferously and relentlessly curb the basic rights of women, it is essential to have women’s universities as they not only harbour strong, but fair feminist views as well. Such thoughts and ideas are necessary to permeate the social fabric so as to protect women’s rightful identity and place.”
Also, the efficacy of a women’s university finally determines how its students fare outside the university premise. Knowledge does not get one a degree but more importantly empowerment. This goes a long way in shaping one’s attitude, conviction and confidence. “Unlike a co-education university, here girl students get to experience every role in administration and finance, be it leadership, marketing, facilitating as university senate or student council members. In co-educational institutions, they often get sidelined or do not get such opportunities,” feels Dr Sonawat. Ghosh reflects, “Students of women’s universities get duly sensitised to women’s issues and challenges which holds them good in later life.”
Somewhere, the concept of a women’s university must be working for a variety of reasons as mentioned above. Otherwise SNDTWU would not have successfully completed a century this year, note the academicians.
SEGREGATION EMPOWERS
But with changing time, with more women joining the work force, interaction with the opposite gender has also become all the more necessary. As Gupta maintains, “Banasthali equipped me with knowledge and confidence to take on challenges. But later at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Academy (IGRUA), Rae Bareli, which are coeducation institutions, I was able to relate to the other gender’s thoughts and ideas. It improved my interpersonal communication skills, which is a must in the professional world,” explains Gupta.
Documentary filmmaker Tanushri Upadhyay, adds, “Feminist Mary Wollstonecraft had maintained that schooling should be coeducational. If both the genders have to co-exist then both should receive same education and opportunity. Interaction among genders is important primarily because it broadens the perspective and also kills inhibition about the opposite gender.”
Dr Banerjee strikes the perfect balance looking at the overall patriarchal context that we are in. “Gender neutral education space is ideal. May be at some point, co-education learning has its benefits, especially in the increasingly globalised world that we live in. However, it is also a world where at every turn, women’s rights are transgressed. Hence, it is important that women universities exist and their numbers increase.”