The National Commission for Women (NCW) has written to Aligarh Muslim University about alleged discrimination against girls in the university, asking them for an explanation.
Last week The Hindu>had reported that some professional UG courses apart, women were barred from enrolling in undergraduate courses in the main campus of AMU. Instead, they went to the Women's College, which has very limited resources, seats and other educational facilities.
Several women faculty members of Women’s College and renowned historian Prof. Irfan Habib had told The Hindu about “AMU’s discriminatory policies” and said that different cut-off lists for girls and boys with fewer seats for girls leading to high cutoffs for them was one of the issues of concern.
In a letter to the AMU Vice Chancellor Lt. Gn. (Retd.) Zameer Uddin Shah, NCW chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam condemned “such form of gender bias in access to educational opportunities”, and said: “The National Commission for Women is deeply perturbed by the report that appeared in The Hindu, dated May 9, titled ‘AMU charged with bias'.”
Ms. Kumaramangalam's letter said the “ban” against girls from taking admission in UG courses in the main campus was a “clear case of gender discrimination” and is against the spirit of the Constitution which under articles 15, 16, 17, 38 and 48 guarantees that the State shall not discriminate between persons on the basis of their gender.
“AMU’s prejudiced educational policy is in sharp contradiction to the National Policy on Education, 1986 which envisaged…that in order to neutralize the accumulated distortions of the past, there will be a well-conceived edge in favour of women," said the letter, a copy of which is in possession of The Hindu.
Instead of providing "positive edge" in favour of women, the AMU’s educational policies are taking “retrograde steps”, pointed out the letter.
In the letter, Ms. Kumaramangalam asked the university to “provide a satisfactory explanation before the Commission on framing of such prejudiced educational policies against women and also furnish detailed information pertaining to University’s admission process, the percentage of male and female students in each course and facilities available for female students with respect to the to the main campus within 5 days.”
