Recently the second phase of Vigyan Jyoti program has been started which will cover 100 districts. Vigyan Jyoti program was launched by the Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology.
Apart from this, DST is actively working to bring gender equality in Science and Technology (S&T) through various women centric programmes.
Key Features of Vigyan Jyoti Program:
It aims to address the under-representation of women in various fields of Science-Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the country.
As a first step, ‘Vigyan Jyoti’ was started in the year 2019-20 at the school level, in which meritorious girl students of classes 9-12 are being encouraged to take up STEM courses in higher education and make a career in it.
Vigyan Jyoti envisages to encourage meritorious girls from school level i.e. class IX which will continue till PhD level so that girls can make career in their under-represented fields like Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) be encouraged.
Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS), an autonomous organization of the Ministry of Education, is the implementation partner of Vigyan Jyoti. NVS has a network of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs) in more than 600 districts of India.
Other Related Government Initiatives:
Mahila Scientist Scheme: To help women with break in career.
Indo-US Fellowship for Women in STEM Program: Under this, women scientists can work in research laboratories in the US.
Consolidation of University Research for Innovation and Excellence in Women’s Universities (Curie) Program: To improve R&D infrastructure and establish state-of-the-art research facilities for excellence in science and technology in women’s universities.
Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI) Programme: Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions (GATI) will create an overall charter and framework for assessing gender equality in STEM.
The new education policy and science, technology and innovation policy can use the demographic dividend to drive rapid progress in a short period of time to help increase the number of women in the STEM sector.
In addition, DST has also set up Artificial Intelligence (AI) laboratories in women’s universities with the goal of promoting AI innovations and preparing skilled manpower for AI-based jobs in the future.
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