Telangana: Student moms of PG, UG courses may get 240 days of maternity leave

Hyderabad: In what could be termed as good news, the expectant mothers pursuing post-graduate and undergraduate courses might avail maternity leave up to 240 days during their course period.

Following a directive from the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Central, State, private, deemed universities and autonomous colleges have to make necessary changes in the existing regulations with regard to maternity leave for their students going to be mothers.

While several universities allow doctoral students, including expectant mothers, to convert their regular research programmes into part-time on reasonable grounds, the same was seen lacking when it came to expectant mothers pursuing the undergraduate and post-graduate courses.

Taking into account the issues faced by these women, the UGC has come up with new regulations. Accordingly, women pursuing undergraduate and post-graduate courses can now avail maternity leave up to 240 days once in their course period.

Speaking to The Hans India, an official from the Academic and Planning wing of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad said, "The new changes would not be any problem for those pursuing PhD programme. As per the existing regulations, PhD can be completed within a minimum of three years to five years. In case of part-time, it would be six years. However, the new changes warrant amendments in the existing regulations governing PG and UG courses."

Commenting on the same, a senior official at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University (PJTSAU) said, "We don't have M Phil courses in our university. However, the post-graduate courses with a minimum period of completion of two years and a maximum period of three to four years might need changes in regulation."

Currently, the New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020) implementation allows universities and colleges to take a one-year break from the course period from undergraduate to post-graduate and equivalent courses. Now the question that is coming to the fore is whether a prospective mother pursuing undergraduate or PG courses can avail 240 days of maternity leave in addition to the break year?

The new directive of the UGC said that women candidates may be provided maternity leave or child care leave once in the entire duration of M Phil/PhD for up to 24O days. Accordingly, it has asked all the higher education institutions to frame appropriate rules/norms about granting maternity leave to expectant mothers studying in their institutions. That apart, it has asked to provide necessary relaxations and exemptions concerning attendance, extension in date for submitting examination forms or any other facility deemed necessary for expectant mothers pursuing undergraduate and post-graduate programmes also.