Shashikala Gurupur, director of Symbiosis Law School, Pune, and former member of the Law Commission of India, on Monday expressed regret that despite the steps taken for increasing the enrolment of women for higher education, even today the government has not achieved satisfactory results.
Speaking at the ninth convocation of Akka Mahadevi Women’s University (AWU) here on Monday, she noted that for complete social development of women, preparation of effective policies and laws was necessary.
“What is needed is to ensure access to higher education for women and their participation in leadership roles in decision-making areas,” she said.
Dr. Gurupur said all forms of discrimination must be eliminated in order to realise the goal of women’s empowerment. She said the main factors that were part of the Beijing declaration of 1995 in the field of women’s empowerment across the globe have still remained on paper.
“The factors that are acting as a barricade are poverty, violence, non-recognition of women’s contribution to society, and unequal power structures,” she said.
Quoting the Global Human Development Report, she said 66% of women in the world were illiterate, while only 33% enrolled for higher education. “At the global level in politics, only 10% of women become parliamentarians when compared to their male counterparts. This is the harsh reality for women across the world, including in developed countries,” she said.
She said in such a situation, education is a key factor and institutions such as AWU can play a big role in giving a boost to women in this movement. “Let this university be an incubator for many good women’s universities, and let it be among the top-performing universities of India and the world.”
On the occasion, T. K. Anuradha and Pankaj Mittal were conferred with honorary doctorates for contributions to the fields of science and technology and higher education, respectively.
