In a move to benefit the transgender community in Maharashtra, public universities in the state have agreed to provide free education to students from transgender community. The decision has been taken following the suggestion of the state government to fund the studies of students belonging to the transgender community.
As reported by PTI, in an interaction with vice-chancellors of the state universities, Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil asked the varsities to bear the entire fees of transgender students from their funds.
The report further added that all vice-chancellors have unanimously accepted the appeal made by the minister to provide free education to the students of the transgender community. These students will get free education in the varsities and allied colleges.
The Supreme Court had recognised transgender people as a third gender in 2014. After the decision, the CBSE and a few other state boards had added transgender as a separate category along with male and female. However, many other state boards are still awaiting 'requests' from transgenders to create a category for them.
According to census 2011, there are 4.88 lakh transgender people in the country and the literacy rate among them is 56.1 per cent.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 identifies transgender children as Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs). The Union government has urged all state and national education boards to provide equitable quality education for all transgender students.