Female leaders and researchers missing in higher education in South Asia

Report by India Education bureau, New Delhi: A new report has found that women in higher education in South Asia are not being identified and prepared for leadership. There is also evidence that when they do aspire for leadership they are frequently rejected from the most senior positions. It also found that many women academics in the region are reluctant to aim for senior leadership and perceive it as an unattractive career option.

The research report, ‘Women in Higher Education Leadership in South Asia: Rejection, Refusal, Reluctance, Revisioning’ by Professor Louise Morley and Dr Barbara Crossouard, from the Centre of Higher Education and Equity research at the University of Sussex, was commissioned by the British Council. Based on research they conducted in six countries across South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), theyfound that there are complex and multi-dimensional barriers to women’s leadership in higher education.  These range from social, cultural and economic barriers in each country, the organisational culture in universities, discrimination in recruitment and selection, and unequal power relations.  The report also found some enablers to women achieving leadership positions, including training and development, support and mentorship and international networks and mobility across the region.

“First and foremost, most selection committees have only men. Very, very few have any women. Most that I've gone through, they've been all men on the committee, for any position,” says a female dean in India, describing in the report how universities’ selection procedures were exclusionary and discriminated against women.

“My suggestion is that among the Asian countries, there should be a goodnetwork between the women. Especially between the universities, thereshould be a good website for them to exchange their ideas, to solve theirproblems, because mostly most of the Asian countries have the sameproblem, the same barriers,” says the vice-dean of a university in Afghanistan, in the report.

Another recent report has found that a rise in female educational enrolment in South Asia is not leading to careers in research, to the long term detriment of the region.The report, based on data and interviews with education leaders across the region, has found that there are not enough women taking up careers in research in South Asia, and inequalities in the hiring process, unfavourable workplace practices and other institutional barriers may be to blame.

Only three per cent of vice-chancellors in India are women, with six of the 13 female vice chancellors found at women-only institutions.

The report, ‘Defined by absence: Women and research in South Asia’ prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of the British Council, states that “The rise in female higher education participation has been driven by rising incomes, the creation of a rapidly growing labour market for the higher skilled and gradually changing attitudes regarding women in the workforce. Higher education has become both more affordable and often a pre-requisite to region’s competitive labour markets. However, female enrolment in postgraduate degree programmes has not risen as rapidly, and women as researchers are notably missing”. 

“The average expectation in India was that you would first take care of being ayoung woman who has to settle and have a family. And then, if time permits—everything else permits— you will continue research,” says RohiniGodbole, Professor, Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in the report.

The report examines the barriers that women researchers face in South Asia, andrecommends action to address them. In 2014, it shows that in South Asia, cultural restrictions and a lack of career opportunities play amajor role in contributing to the gradual drop off of women researchers after PhD level. There is a serious lack of gender specific data on South Asia that can help evaluate the gap in the workplace. Good initiatives are in short supply, and in cases where they do exist sustainable funding can be a problem. The report suggests that this gender imbalance is not being taken seriously enough at the highest levels or by the women themselves.

The report recommends that education institutions adopt changes in work practices and support mechanisms designed to allow women to commit to a career in research beyond PhD level. It is acknowledged that Strong leadership is needed to push institutions to act and in many cases there are not enough strong voices at the highest level. However, the report warns that success demands that women represent an increasing proportion of the academic talent pool, particularly among the dwindling number of researchers.

Findings from both the research reports will be shared and discussed at the Global Education Dialogue on Women and Leadership “the Absent Revolution” being hosted by the British Council on 10 and 11 February in Delhi. 

Education policy makers from across South Asia and the UK are taking part in the two-day programme, which includes discussions on 

• the under-representation of women in influential and senior leadership positions in higher education institutions

• the lack of gender-disaggregated statistics with which to inform and evaluate effective higher education policy implementation

• Bringing transparency into the recruitment and selection processes for senior appointments to improve gender parity in academic appointments

Rob Lynes, Director British Council India said: “To create long term, sustainable and mutually beneficial education links with South Asia it is critical for the UK to understand the context in which South Asia operates. Gender and equality opportunity is an important area. We welcome the delegates from across the region and hope this dialogue helps them build links between countries in the region and with the UK.”

Quotas do not hurt efficiency, says study

It measured impact of reservation on productivity in Railways

A first-of-its-kind study of the impact of reservations in public sector jobs on productivity and efficiency has shown that the affirmative action did not reduce productivity in any sector, but had, in fact, raised it in some areas.

Despite being widespread and much-debated, India’s reservation policy for the educationally and socially backward classes is poorly studied. While there is some research into the impact of reservations in politics and in higher education, there has been no study yet of its impact on the economy.

In the pioneering study, Ashwini Deshpande, Professor at the Delhi School of Economics, and Thomas Weisskopf, Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, measured the impact of reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) on productivity and efficiency in the Indian Railways between 1980 and 2002. The study was published in the World Development journal

The Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer where affirmative action applies, Ms. Deshpande said. It employs between 1.3 and 1.4 million people at four levels of employment — Group A to Group D, with Group A employees being the senior-most. There is 15 per cent reservation for the SCs and 7.5 per cent reservation for the STs at all levels, with additional reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The study looked at SC and ST employees in Group A and B only, since people from marginalised backgrounds would have been unlikely to reach high levels of employment without reservation.

Since an individual’s impact on productivity is impossible to estimate, Ms. Deshpande and Mr. Weisskopf compared zones and periods of time with higher numbers of SC and ST employees with those with lower numbers, keeping other variables constant. They found no negative impact on productivity and efficiency in any area, and some positive effects in some areas of work.

“Beyond the numbers, we can speculate about the reasons for why there might be some positive impact of affirmative action,” Ms. Deshpande explained. “Individuals from marginalised groups may be especially highly motivated to perform well when they attain decision-making and managerial positions, because of the fact that they have reached these positions in the face of claims that they are not sufficiently capable, and they may consequently have a strong desire to prove their detractors wrong,” the authors suggested.

This is a possible explanation which rings true for Scheduled Caste employees of the Railways whomThe Hindu spoke to. “At every level where there is discretionary power, SC/ ST employees are systematically discriminated against,” said B.L. Bairwa, the president of the All-India Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Railway Employees Association.

He cited a number of cases from across the country that he was battling, of deserving backward caste railway employees who had been passed up for promotions, transferred arbitrarily or given adverse records. “When an SC or ST employee rises, he has to prove himself and work extra hard. I am not surprised the efficiency goes up,” he said.

Keywords: Public sector jobs, Indian Railways

All languages skew towards happiness

WASHINGTON PTI





All human languages ­ be it English, Arabic, Russian or Korean ­ tend to use positive words more frequently than negative ones, a new study has found. “Put even more simply, humans tend to look on (and talk about) the bright side of life,“ researchers said. A team of scientists at the University of Vermont (UVM) and colleagues used a massive data set of many billions of words, based on actual usage.
The study indicates that lan guage itself has a positive outlook.And, therefore, “it seems that positive social interaction is built into its fundamental structure,“ said mathematician Peter Dodds who co-led the study.
A Google Web crawl of Spanishlanguage sites had the highest average word happiness, and a search of Chinese books had the lowest, but all 24 sources of words that they analysed skewed above the neutral score of five on their one-to-nine scale ­ regardless of the language.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODELS

Dates: 20 - 21 February, 2015.
Venue: XLRI, Jamshedpur.
Organizers: SBM Forum and XLRI, Jamshedpur.
About: With an aspiration to scale-up the program and to encourage faculty to teach the program in their respective schools, the course on ‘Sustainable Business Models’ will be delivered to faculty from eminent B-Schools. This FDP will be a two day workshop, detailing the pedagogy for SBM, conducted by MART experts along with experts from the industry and academia. Faculty Development Programme (FDP) aims at equipping teachers with skills and knowledge that are essential for inculcating a thought process regarding SBM amongst students and guiding their progress towards a career in SBM.

A list of the broad themes to be discussed in the FDP is as follows:

• Sustainable Business Models – Relevance and its future
• Sustainability and Business
• Discussion on National Voluntary Guidelines
• Concepts and Frameworks
• SBM- Business Model Innovation
• Conversation on BoP
• SBM approach - Business Process Re-engineering
• SBM approach - Customer Centric Models
• Emerging phenomena – Bio-mimicry, HIP Investing, Mission Zero
• Sustainability Assessment
• Assessment Framework for the course.

JNU to have hostel for Northeast students: Dr. Jitendra Singh

Report by India Education bureau, New Delhi: The Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh has said here today, that Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) will soon have a hostel for Northeast students.

 The Minster has visited the JNU campus to inspect the site proposed for the purpose. He was accompanied by Vice Chancellor of JNU, Prof. S.K. Sopory, Deputy Registrar, Shri Antony Sille and Secretary, North Eastern Council (NEC), Shri Ameising Lukham and other senior officials. 

The hostel estimated to be built at a cost of Rs 32.44 crore will be a four storied R.C.C structure with total constructed area of 12444.96 sqm. The hostel will have an accommodation of 210 living rooms catering to almost double the number of students, in addition to a dining hall for approximately 270 students, four Warden Flats and two common rooms. There will also be provision for balcony with living room, pantry, and open space between the rooms, pantry and a parking lot. 

Dr. Jitendra Singh was also given a brief technical presentation on the plan and outlay by the Engineers and architects of RITES following which he said that with the construction of this hostel, the DoNER Ministry would have fulfilled one of its major commitments of providing hostel facility for students from North-East with provision for all amenities and security concern. This will go a long way in enabling the bright youngsters from the region to come closer to the mainstream life of the country. One more site for a similar hostel has also been identified in the premises of Ramanujan Collegel, Kalkaji he added. 

Dr. Jitendra Singh said the number of students from the 8 States of North-East region is constantly on the rise and the Ministry of DoNER has taken upon itself the responsibility to encourage and promote their growth in the union capital as well as in other parts of the country. In this regard, he also referred to the DoNER Ministry’s plans to bring up similar hostels in other parts of the country and said , once this initiative in Delhi is successfully accomplished, similar projects will be taken up in other major cities also beginning from Bengaluru, Pune, Ahmedabad, etc. 

Dr. Jitendra Singh said he had issued instructions to the officials in the Ministry to set up a website where all the grievances of the people from Northâ€'East could be received and appropriately responded to. Similarly, he said, he has also directed the officers in DoNER Ministry to hold regular interactions with the youth and student representatives living in the union capital. A nodal officer in the DoNER Ministry is proposed to be designated for receiving the calls and inputs from the North-East origin people living in Delhi. 

India fastest growing economy

Projection based on new methodology

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said on Monday that India is set to grow 7.4 per cent and cross the $2.1-trillion mark this year against 6.9 per cent in 2013-14.

India grew 7.5 per cent in the October-December quarter, according to the estimates released, overtaking China’s 7.3 per cent growth in the same quarter, to become the fastest growing major economy in the world.

The smart economic pick-up is largely on the back of robust manufacturing sector performance and a surge in public expenditure.

Capital formation, an indicator for the investment growth in the economy, dropped to 29.8 per cent during April-December 2014 from 30.7 per cent in April-December 2013.

The overall economic situation in the country is looking better and the basic parameters of the Indian economy are moving in the right direction, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said ahead of the release of the advanced estimates by CSO. “India’s growth rate would be better than last year as per the old system,” he said addressing a parliamentary consultative committee.

Releasing the advance estimates based on a new way of calculating gross domestic product (GDP), CSO Additional Director-General Ashish Kumar told reporters that the methodology was consistent with global norms.

“The government can immediately use these numbers for policy-making,” he said, replying to a question on a reported statement of Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian about his reluctance to use the revised estimates for policy purposes. Mr. Kumar also said that though the estimates put India’s growth ahead of China, the fact was India’s economy was many times smaller in size than China’s and, therefore, the two could not be compared.

The manufacturing sector grew 10.1 per cent in the October-December quarter, against 8.7 per cent in the previous quarter. Public services grew 20 per cent against 6 per cent.

The estimates show a sharp unexpected dip in construction growth to 1.7 per cent in the three months from October to December in 2014 from 7.3 per cent in the July-September quarter. Agriculture output contracted minus 0.4 per cent during the October quarter on the back of the unfavourable kharif harvest.

With the advance estimate for the nominal GDP for 2014-15 of Rs. 126 trillion being somewhat lower than the level assumed in the Union budget Mr. Jaitley presented in July, the Finance Minister’s stated challenge of restricting the fiscal deficit to 4.1 per cent of GDP has become more stringent, said Aditi Nayar, Senior Economist, ICRA.

The advance estimates are on a new base year of 2011-12 against 2004-05 used earlier.

The coverage is also greater with manufacturing now including previously under-represented sectors supplemented with data from the government’s corporate database.

Keywords: Indian economy, India GDP, economic growth

@ 65 India's population is still young

It has added between 250 million and 350 million people every decade

On January 26, 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force and a new Republic was born, the country was smaller, younger, but with a far bleaker outlook.

Sixty-five years later, some expected and some unexpected changes have transformed the country.

Census data shows that in 1951 India had 361 million people. To put this in perspective, today just Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh alone have more numbers. Since 1950, India has added one-quarter to one-fifth of its own population every ten years — until this last decade, when population growth fell to its lowest ever level. Except the first decade after the founding of the Republic, India has added between 250 and 350 million people every decade.

In 60 years, India’s population tripled. Even today, the decadal growth rates in the northern States are over 20 per cent, where Kerala and Tamil Nadu were 40 years ago.

If India is seen as a young country today, it was even younger at the time of the founding of the Republic. The median age was just 21 years, as opposed to over 25 today. Nearly half the population was under the age of 20 as opposed to 38 per cent today.

But a child born in 1951 was only expected to live until the age of 37 — now up to 64. India’s Infant Mortality rate (IMR) was a staggering 146 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, now down to 40. The average woman had 5.6 children, over double today’s rate. Approaching replacement levels of 2.1 children per woman — a milestone India is just a few years away from — must have appeared nearly impossible. Adult mortality too has more than halved over the last 60 years.

But here’s a little-noticed demographic quirk of India’s declining fertility. While the popular narrative is one of women having fewer children, later in life, 60 years of fertility data show that the mean age at which women have their children has actually fallen. What this implies is that women still have their children in their early 20s, but then stop after two or three children, meaning fewer women in their thirties and forties in fact are now having children.

In 1951, India’s literacy rate was 18.33 per cent — fewer than one in every five adults was literate. This is now up to 73 per cent, and both the rural-urban and male-female gaps in literacy are down to their lowest ever rates. But the numbers also show just how big a head-start the southern states have had over their northern neighbours.

Kerala’s literacy rate in 1951 was the same as Bihar’s in 2001. The sex ratio was skewed against girls at birth even 60 years ago, and is even more so now. Fifty years ago, this was an extremely rural country; four out of every five Indians lived in villages. India has indeed urbanised in the last half century, but this has happened far slower than expected. As of the 2011 Census, nearly 70 per cent of India was still rural.

In 1950, India was more urban than China. Yet by 2005, China was 41 per cent urban to India’s 29 per cent, and by 2025 it will be 64 per cent urban to India’s 38 per cent, according to projections by McKinsey.

“Despite significant fluctuations over the past few decades, urban growth has, at best, been modest in India. Moreover, contemporary growth scenarios in India cast serious doubts on the prospect for rapid urbanisation in the future,” Amitabh Kundu, an expert on urbanisation, and retired professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University, said.

Migration — migrants as a percentage of the total population — Mr. Kundu says, has reduced steadily over the last few decades, despite the popular perception that it is growing; the bulk of urbanisation is explained by the expansion of cities, and their merging with nearby villages.

What has exploded are India’s megacities; between 1950 and 2005, Delhi — and this is the city alone, not its satellites – grew to 11 times its size.

In 1950, the world had just two megacities (with a population of over 10 million) — New York City and Tokyo. By 2015, the world had 22, three of the ten biggest — Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata - being in India. By 2030, Mumbai and Delhi will be the world’s second and third biggest cities, as Tokyo and New York flatten, and Sao Paulo and Mexico City grow, but slowly. By then, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad will also be megacities, by U.N. projections.

As it stands, there are many Indians today, for whom the last 65 years have been transformative in varying degrees. After the first three decades in which there was virtually no decline in poverty, the official count of those in poverty has fallen from 45 per cent of the population in 1993-4 to 22 per cent as of 2011-12. Deep-seated inequalities along caste, gender and religious lines remain, but gaps have substantially narrowed in the last 65 years.