Now, Engineering institutes includes 'transgender' column

Also, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken several steps to address the various issues and problems faced by the transgender community in higher educational institutions.

The admissions in engineering institutes will now have transgender as third gender as a separate column, besides male and female, from the 2017-18 academic year.

The All India Council for Technical Education has notified transgenders as the third gender to enable them to avail all the benefits in engineering institutes. The AICTE included this new column for educational institutions in its 2017-18 approval process handbook, which prescribes norms and standards for grant of approvals to technical institutions. And this has to be introduced in every engineering institutes. There are more than 3,000 registered engineering institutes under the AICTE.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, AICTE chairman, said that the core objective of admitting transgender students to pursue technical courses will make it easier for them as they will face no discrimination since they are forced to identify themselves as either male or female.

A senior official said that they had earlier talks with the HRD ministry regarding this and now they have included it in the approval handbook so that there is no discrimination to the transgenders. All the institute now have to maintain data of male, female and transgender students separately.

Also, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken several steps to address the various issues and problems faced by the transgender community in higher educational institutions.

In 2014, the Supreme Court said that the third gender will be considered as the OBC, directing the government to provide them with education and employment reservation under this category.

OneIndia News