ANTI-RAGGINGInstitution
Best Practices
1.Overcoming Gender Barrier in A Higher Education Institute
Objectives of the Practice:
- To create a gender barrier-free learning
- To convince the families of our students about the consistent and active practices on
- To enable and motivate all the stakeholders in maintaining and protecting a non- discriminatory gender sensitive college
- To support our students in addressing any kind of gender insensitivity on
- To empower the students facing any gender barrier, on or beyond campus, to be strong, candid and honest in navigating through it.
- To ensure that our students are capable enough to overcome all gender related constraints in pursuing higher education as well as in attaining a rewarding.
The Context:
Garhbeta College has a rich female-male student ratio. The district of Medinipur has a long history of education, bravery as well as fight for freedom and against injustice. A number of women took the lead role in many instances, but at the same time the place has had a history of early marriages, early childbirth and first baby gender preference. It is a challenge for a higher education institute like ours to address these issues, in order to uphold the proud history of women leadership. It is in this context that Garhbeta College takes its responsibility of promoting gender sensitivity and sensibility extremely seriously. This institution has made it a regular practice to work towards breaking the gender barriers in higher education.
The Practice:
Garhbeta College ensures this practice through two methods.
A. Activities:
Sanitary Napkin Vending Machine: Sanitary napkin vending machines are installed in two places on campus, one in the girls’ common room and the other in the girls’ hostel. Incinerator machines have also been installed along with each vending machine, for ecologically responsible disposals.
Subsidizing Vending Machine: In a rural setup like Garhbeta, the taboo around menstruation is restrictive for women, both hygienically as well as economically. Recognizing the multi-dimensionality of this issue, our college has made the use of vending machine subsidized for our students since 19.11.2022.
Entrepreneurship Workshops: Self-employment for women is an important step for breaking the gender barrier, and for that, the women’s cell of our college organizes entrepreneurship workshops. A number of other workshops on capacity building take place in our college where many of our girl students participate actively.
SAHELI, The Women’s Cell: Our college has a very active and effective women’s cell, Saheli. It has been instrumental in ensuring equality and thereby empowering girl students to excel in their academic pursuits and overall development.
Internal Complaints Committee: The college has constituted the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), as per the recommendation of UGC for higher education institutions, to ensure a sexual harassment-free environment, to strive for zero tolerance of gender-based violence, and to conduct various gender sensitization programmes to evaluate, assist and support all the stakeholders of the institution and deal with the harassment complaint (if any) following as per Section 4(1) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
Legal Awareness Cell: A legal awareness cell is constituted in our college, to assist girl students, their parents, along with all other stakeholders, in order to break the discriminatory barrier in our society. It works alongside the ICC.
B.Awareness:
Legal awareness camp: Awareness camp organised for the girl students and their mothers, to know about women’s legal rights.
Bring your mother: Students bring their mothers, many of whom have never set foot on a college campus, to be aware of how inspiring an academic institution can be.
Menstrual Hygiene Camp: Awareness camp on menstrual hygiene by renowned gynaecologist for the girl students of our college and the high schools in the neighbourhood.
Sanitary Napkin Distribution Camp: Awareness camp for girl students at local high school, where sanitary napkins are distributed.
Seminars and Debate competitions: These are organized to raise gender awareness.
Evidence of Success:
Ratio of female-male students: Over the years, our college has happily witnessed a that the enrolment of female students has remained steady. The female to male student ratio in current academic year is around 1.09:1.
Women’s participation: Garhbeta College community has embarked upon a number of programmes, where true participation in hands-on workshops, seminars, awareness campaigns, cultural performances, representing college in different cultural events, mock parliaments and sports activities. It is heartening to see the significant representation of our girl students in all these programmes and events.
Redressal of gender-related offense with zero tolerance: The tireless campaigns from the Internal Complaints Committee and Saheli, the Women’s Cell of Garhbeta College have been towards making the college campus a discrimination-free place and breaking the gender barriers in the way of attaining higher education. We ensure stern redressal of any reported gender-related incidents. We remain alert to recognise and help our students identify any such incident and support them to be confident about reporting it.
Problems Encountered and Resource Required:
Problems:
- It is tough to identify the gender barrier by breaking the ice with the students, especially who are first-generation learners. It takes consistent effort to make them believe in the institutional support system.
- It gets difficult to address a gender issue as it is often presented as intertwined with the economic condition, rural upbringing and socio-religious We need to be extremely sensitive in our approach.
Resource required:
- Funding for the sanitary napkin vending machines and the regular supply of sanitary
- Although subsidy has been graciously granted by the governing body of the college, it needs to be further
- Funds are needed for large-scale gender awareness programmes.
Notes (Optional):
A gender barrier is a multi-layered issue. It is a challenge that has been taken up to address an issue entangled in gender-economy-location-caste conundrum. The college is significantly touching the lives of the student community and the neighbourhood and relentlessly helping students to break the gender barrier in higher education.
2. Encouraging Future Students to Pursue Higher Education
Objectives of the Practice:
- To ignite aspirations among school students to join college for higher
- To familiarise them with the academic practices of a
- To allow the school students to visit science laboratories for understanding the importance and excitement of partaking experiments.
- To inculcate an inquisitive mind among
- To give them some idea about how a college student can make a difference in the society, by visiting their schools for various educational
- To give the school students, their teachers as well as their parents some idea about the holistic knowledge the students would acquire by joining.
The Context:
As a higher education institute in a rural setup, we take our social responsibility very seriously. We believe that it is our responsibility to create an environment that encourages the young generation of the neighbourhood into higher education. Historically, there has been a long tradition of attaining education among the people of the district. But at the same time, we see the economic volatility of a rural area like ours often push the families choose work over higher education. Sometimes, girls are married off early too, for similar reason. As a higher education institution of repute that is serving the community for the past 75 years, it is the duty of our college to generate an inspiring and welcoming environment for the school students for further learning. A special emphasis of this practice of promoting higher education has been to encourage school students to take up science study, especially, Biology (Zoology, Physiology, Botany), Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Applications.
The Practice:
Garhbeta College ensures this practice through two methods.
A. Open House for School Students:
Visit to Chemistry Department: Local students visited Chemistry laboratory on 28/02/2023 and 5/01/2024. It was a valuable educational experience. By actively participating in laboratory activities, students gained practical skills and developed critical thinking abilities.
Visit to Physiology Department: A group of school students visited the Physiology department on 14/09/2024. They had hands-on experience with some experimental procedures under the microscope. Such interactive visits make the young minds understand how comfortable they would be once they choose our institute for higher studies.
Visit to Zoology laboratory: On 21/09/2023, local students visited the Zoology Laboratory. The objective was to provide them a hands-on experience in Zoology and to foster their interest in the natural sciences. By providing a stimulating environment with a range of activities, the laboratory visit aimed to ignite curiosity, inspire learning, and sow the seeds for potential future scientists.
Visit to Botany Department: A group of local students visited the department of botany on 28th February 2023. They were introduced with different bio-instruments and specimens. This visit was helpful to the students for better understanding the diverse plant world and the scope for further exploration.
Visit to Physics Department: The department of Physics had hosted a group of local students on 05/01/2024. The primary goal was to allow them to apply theoretical knowledge from the classroom to practical experiments. Students were introduced to various apparatus, instruments and circuit components used in the laboratory. The visit ignited curiosity and enthusiasm for Physics among the students and inspired them to pursue further studies in Physics.
Visit to BCA Department: Local students visited the department of BCA and participated in a one-day boot camp on soft skills. It gave them ample exposure to learn soft skills and the exciting world of the computers.
Visit to the Library: Local school students visited our library on 5th January, 2024. The purpose was to encourage reading habits among students and get inspired to enter higher education. The informative interaction between the librarian and the students highlighted the resources available, and the scope of further exploration into the wonderful world of academia.
B.Taking College Community to the Schools:
Human-Environment Harmony: Awareness camp organised at local high school to celebrate World Elephant Day.
Encouraging Artistic Talents: A sit-and-draw competition was organized to commemorate the birth anniversary of artist Abanindranath Thakur at a local high school .
Significance of green practices: A proponent of green habits from the organization Love Thy Nature was taken to a high school to raise awareness about developing eco-friendly practices.
Sanitary Napkin Distribution Camp: A girls’ high school was visited to campaign for sanitary hygiene and to distribute sanitary napkins.
Evidence of Success:
Student enrolment: Over the years, our college has happily witnessed a that the enrolment of students has remained steady.
Growing Interest in Higher Education: Along with the humanities and social science subjects offered at our college, the science subjects particularly teach the students future-proof skills. They learn versatile skills for everyday problem solving and innovations. The nearby schools report that students show interest in these subjects and we too see that many of the students from these schools get enrolled in our college, proving that our efforts are paying off.
Giving it back to the Society: In order to help the school students see how rewarding and fulfilling a college life can be, we ensure that our current students take active part in all the events, programmes and outreach activities. School students get an opportunity to interact with them directly, both in the college and during the events and outreach programmes. More number of our students participate in these activities than before, which proves that our students are learning to become a socially responsible young citizen with a holistic knowledge of the subjects and their duty towards to society.
Problems Encountered and Resource Required:
Problems:
- The decision of getting enrolled in college instead of looking for employment is not a one-dimensional decision for the It takes regular and consistent effort to inspire the school students enough to make them convince their parents.
- The teachers of the schools need inspiration too to interact with and assure the families, so that they educate their children further. We ensure that the teachers become a part of all our events and programmes
- We continuously need to make our students employment-ready, through bringing in job opportunities, career counselling as well as incubating innovations.
Resource required:
- There is a regular need for human resources (faculty members, laboratory instructors and enthusiast students of our college) as well as instruments and chemicals for allowing the school students get hands-on
- Funds are needed on a regular basis to make the outreach events successful and
Notes (Optional):
It is a unique practice of our college to make a mark in the social map of our region through encouraging and ensuring more representation of the youth in higher education. Once the students get a proper direction toward enrolling in the college, it changes their approach towards life, makes them more disciplined and responsible as well.