Even as the central government has been talking about encouraging participation of women in academia, the reality in Indian universities shows an altogether different picture.
In an analysis of the gender ratio of faculty members in 28 prominent Central universities in India, dna has found that women faculty members constitute to only 1/4th of the total teachers in these universities. Out of the 28 universities analysed, including at least one prominent university from each state, it was found that out of 7,743 teachers, 5,681 are men and 2,062 are women.
While Aligarh Muslim University and Central University of Kashmir were the worst in terms of gender ratio, the universities located in the national capital including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) have a balance in terms of the gender ratio. IGNOU, that offers courses in various streams including science, humanities and social sciences in fact had the best gender ratio, with 133 female faculty members against 154 male faculty members.
Universities in southern India including Kerala University, University of Karnataka and University of Tamil Nadu also had a balanced gender ratio with 68 and 25, 62 and 20 and 49 and 15 being the ratio of men and women in these universities, respectively.
In terms of the departments in these universities, women faculty was mostly seen sticking to traditional departments like education, sociology, social sciences, psychology, social work and literature. In terms of science subjects, most women faculty were seen deployed in life science subjects like zoology, botany and biology.
Engineering has also continued to be traditional in terms of participation of women, with almost no faculty members in mechanical engineering and civil engineering departments of universities that offer engineering courses.
Medical science subjects also largely seemed traditional, with almost no male faculty in gynaecology department. An increased number of women faculty was, however, seen in cardiology and surgery departments.
Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar recently in an interaction with students of Jamia Millia Islamia university had spoken about encouraging girls and women and empowering them with education. Former HRD minister Smriti Irani had also offered relaxation in rules to female research scholars, so that more women could pursue with their research.
