Overview
- Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil has directed the formation of a high-level committee to design and implement support measures for children of single mothers in colleges and technical institutes.
- A departmental survey led by the Directorate of Higher Education identified about 14,000 students from single-mother households but officials say the figure may be an undercount because institutions lack a uniform recording system.
- The committee will examine adding a dedicated “Single Parent Child” admission category to collect accurate data and will study practical institutional measures such as sensitisation of staff, counselling services and priority hostel allotment.
- The department will hold a statewide online meeting with principals of roughly 1,500 colleges on June 17 to map registration processes and test how proposed measures could work at the institutional level.
- Larger financial steps such as fee concessions, scholarships or reimbursements are being reserved for the Women and Child Development Department’s Ekal Mahila policy and will await that panel’s recommendations.