JOIN USAfter 9 years, BU gets transgender students
Breaking the barrier of discrimination, two students have applied for a postgradute programme at the Bangalore University under the transgender quota, nine years after the introduction of the reservation to enable equal opportunities.
The university has received two applications in the ongoing admissions/counselling for various postgraduate courses for the 2019-20 academic year. That it took nine years for the members of the community to apply under transgender category is indicative of the stigma attached to the community.
DH is withholding the names of the candidates and the departments they have applied to in view of their privacy and safety.
Meanwhile, officials said the applicants have not uploaded the necessary documents to claim seats under the quota. They, however, decided not to reject the applications considering the fear such candidates face. “We will wait for the applicants to turn up,” an official said.
Counselling has started in one of the departments that received the application under the quota and an official in charge reached out to the applicants, informing them to come with necessary documents.
Prof B K Ravi, registrar, administration of Bangalore University, said, “For the first time after the introduction of the quota, we received two applications. Though they have not uploaded necessary documents, we have decided to wait. In fact, the department had informed the applicant about the counselling process.”
Historic decision
The Bangalore University took the historic decision to introduce transgender quota in 2010 when Dr N Prabhu Dev was the vice chancellor.
According to the provision, one seat in each department is reserved for transgenders. There are over 60 different PG departments in the varsity with a total number of 4,000 seats.
Along with transgenders, BU gives reservations under 12 other categories including sports, NCC, NSS, Differently Abled, Cultural, Defence, Kashmiri Migrant, Foreign national.
After the decision, the university changed the application format and introduced ‘others’ under gender category in PG applications.