FM incident puts spotlight on UGC regulations' compliance
To secure students and women employees in higher educational institutions from sexual harassment, the UGC had in 2015 framed the University Grants Commission (prevention, prohibition and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions) Regulations.
Welcoming the state's immediate measures in suspending the principal and accused assistant professor of FM College in connection with a 20-year-old girl student's suicide bid on campus, UGC member Sachidananda Mohanty said there is a need for all HEIs in the state to implement UGC regulations in true spirit and understand the importance of ICCs to prevent sexual harassment.
'Not just forming functional ICCs but the HEIs also have other responsibilities like publicly notifying presence of an active ICC, publicising names and numbers of ICC members in their prospectus, conspicuous places on campus and notice boards,' said Mohanty.
As per the UGC regulations, a sexual harassment complaint is made to ICC and not principal or vice-chancellor. Head of a HEI shall not interfere with an ICC investigation or offer to mediate between the victim or the defendant. Besides, HEIs should institutionalise counselling services for the victims and ICCs should ensure that victims are not victimised or discriminated against while dealing with sexual harassment complaints. They should also submit reports on sexual harassment cases on campuses and action taken reports to UGC periodically. 'But it has come to our notice that many institutions do not report to show that there are no such cases on their campuses. From the UGC point of view, non-reporting is also a violation,' he said.
Mohanty added that the UGC is committed to the safety of girl students and women employees on campuses of both state and centrally-governed HEIs. 'The regulations are framed in a manner to provide utmost safety to them and educational institutions can do so by following the rules with sincerity,' he said.
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