Department of Women Studies

Centre for Women’s Studies was established at the Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan Vidyapeeth (Deemed-to-Be) University, Udaipur by the University Grants Commission under its Tenth Plan to in 2005-06. This Centre started its initial activities under the leadership of Ms. Usha Agarwala who was a known social worker and a teaching faculty at the Udaipur School of Social Work, a constituent unit of the University. As the Director of Centre for Women’s Studies Ms. Agarwala focused the activities of the Centre amongst rural and tribal women of the region.

Many awareness programmes were launched so that the Centre could emerge as a resource centre for many organisations working in the field of women’s empowerment. For almost four years the focus of the Centre has remained in the areas of extension activities, networking with voluntary organisations, research and training programmes, and dissemination of knowledge through seminars and conferences on various issues related to gender and violence against women. Now this centre has commenced certificate courses in Gender and Development and Legal Literacy from 2010-11.

Along with other dimensions of its work, this centre has also extended its activities to the level of advocacy by establishing networks with other Centres for Women’s Studies as well as other women’s organizations in the state of Rajasthan. Creating a common platform to address the concerns of women’s issues has been the major focus of Centre’s networking activities within the city of Udaipur as well in Rajasthan. This Centre is committed to bring in the issues of gender disparity, violence against women as well as women’s empowerment in society and development of this region with its cultural specifications in the academic discourse of women’s studies through its activities in the areas of teaching, research and knowledge sharing.

List of Faculty

 In its first phase of programmes the Department of Women’s Studies has initiated two certificate courses: -

Target Group:
Target group of these Certificate Courses comprises the supervisory as well as grassroots level practitioners, trainers and implementers of the Self-Help Groups as well as different programmes for women’s empowerment operated by the State and voluntary organisations. These courses provide basic specialisation for students of social work, social science and management who seek their career in the field of NGOs. It also serves the interests of the activists and researchers to understand the gender matrix of Development as well as the concepts gender relations in the social- cultural- economic and political contexts in the perspective of the historical processes in the region..

Duration:
6 months. As a part time Certificate Course, classes will be conducted for two hours, per day.

Eligibility:
Minimum eligibility is 10th + 2. This minimum eligibility can be relaxed for those candidates who have been engaged with social work activities at community level for at least three years or the women associated with SHGs, in such cases.


Minimum Intake Capacity:
10 students.

Programme Fee:
Rs. 2500/- (includes Rs. 100/- as Registration Fee) + Examination Fees as per rules of the University.

Course Pedagogy:
This course is a preliminary course that initiates students to the gender perspective in development paradigm and thus it keeps its pedagogic techniques more flexible and adaptive to the requirements of the students. The course would adapt Tailored Method for teaching and would use some practical exposure visits as per the requirement of the course and students. Use of audio-visual medium for teaching is an integrated component of this course.

Evaluation Scheme:

Total Marks: 100
For Paper No I-III:

Internal Assessment: 25 Marks
Class Test – 10 marks
Seminar presentations- 10 marks
Viva – 05 marks
External Assessment: 75 marks

There will be an examination at the end of the semester that will be conducted for three hours on the basis of question paper with following pattern: There would be five questions, carrying equal marks with internal choices. First four questions would be analytical questions; there would be one question per unit with internal choice. Fifth question would carry four short notes, one from each unit and would carry five marks each, out of which any three have to be attempted.

For Paper No IV:

Internal Assessment: 25 Marks.
Seminar Presentation: 10 Marks.
Viva: 15 Marks.
External Assessment: 75 Marks for evaluation of the dissertation/ case-study writing.