Anjali Thomas has successfully passed her PhD examination, and is now completing corrections suggested by her examiners. The doctoral thesis, which constitutes Phase 2 of the 5-year project, is entitled ‘the role of families in the gendered educational trajectories of undergraduate students in Haryana, India’. The examiners were Prof. Ann-Marie Bathmaker and Dr. Pontso Moorosi. The examiners engaged in a rich and robust discussion with Anjali and noted the value and originality of her study as a contribution to the field. Anjali has also been awarded an Early Career Fellowship (ECF) from the University of Warwick’s Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), which is a competitive postdoctoral funding award, during which she will be working on publications and developing her academic career.

Dr Emily Henderson (Fair Chance for Education Project Co-I), Dr Nidhi S. Sabharwal (Project partner) and Anjali Thomas (Project PhD student) were kindly invited by Durham University to present their work on the project in an online research seminar on Wednesday 24th February 2021. Specifically, the three project members presented on ‘Gendered Catchment Areas for Higher Education Choice in Haryana, India’, discussing the importance of catchment areas for higher education access, conceptualisation of the gender regimes in Haryana, other factors which link to gendered catchment areas, as well as policy implications of this.

The seminar was very successful and well attended, prompting a number of interesting discussions.

To see the slide presentation from this event, click here.

Dr Emily Henderson and PhD student Anjali Thomas presented their work in relation to the Fair Chance Foundation Project at a Warwick Department of Education Studies webinar on Wednesday 28th October 2020.

While Emily discussed ‘Gendered Catchment Areas for Higher Education Choice in Haryana, India’, Anjali’s presentation regarded ‘Gendered Agencies within families: deciding to access Higher Education in Haryana, India’.

The webinar, attended by both internal and external viewers, was very well received and led to very interesting post-presentation discussions.

You can find the slides from Emily's presentation here, and from Anjali's presentation here, and the recording of the event here.

The Fair Chance Foundation Project has just been awarded over £42,000 of Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account funding in order to complete a more in-depth impact phase.

The FCF project has, over the past 4 years, been researching access to Higher Education in Haryana, India, focusing on gendered social relations and differences in choices, obstacles and opportunities for young people. The project now seeks to devise a programme of actions leading to positive social change which build on the findings from the three project research phases. Working with local partners, the project will aim to contribute to developing an outreach culture in Haryana, India (and beyond). The project will develop policy briefs and produce an outreach toolkit to support those involved in outreach initiatives. The project team will work with our partners in Haryana and Delhi to develop these resources and to co-facilitate project events.

The FCF Project team would like to extend their deep gratitude to the ESRC IAA scheme for this award which will allow the project to make a more significant impact in this field.

Any project publications and updates will continued to be shared on our website, throughout this new phase of the project.

This year, the University of Warwick has released its first Sustainable Development report addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how it contributes to these goals. In it, Warwick mentions the Fair Chance for Education Project’s contribution to Gender Equality (SDG 5). The project does so in seeking to determine the gendered factors which contribute to access to higher education for young people in Haryana, India.

To see the full report click here. The FCF Project is mentioned on page 5 of the report.

On the 6^th July 2020, Professor Ann Stewart, Dr Emily Henderson, and Dr Nidhi S. Sabharwal took part in the British Council’s UKIERI SPARC Webinar Series: ‘Psychology, Sociology, Gender Studies’.

For the workshop—which aimed at celebrating India-UK partnership in research—Ann, Emily and Nidhi shared their experience running and contributing to the Fair Chance for Education: Gendered Pathways to Educational Success in Haryana Project.

The workshop was very successful and well attended, allowing the team to share the goals and achievements of the FCF Project with a wider audience, while learning from other academics’ experiences in relation to India-UK collaborative works.

For the recording of the session, click here.

For the slides of the presentation, click here.

On Tuesday 14th July, Project Partner Dr. Nidhi S. Sabharwal convened an extremely successful webinar on 'Advancing Gender Equity and Women Empowerment through Education', for which Project Principal Investigator Professor Ann Stewart was a guest speaker. The event sought to discuss gender inequalities in access to education, institutional strategies to promote inclusivity, as well as gender equality in the labour market.

The webinar brought together a variety of speakers such as academics and policy makers, and was extremely well received with over 900 attendees, including numerous attendees from NIEPA's extensive networks.

To listen to the full webinar recording, click here.

For Professor Ann Stewart's presentation slides, click here.

Yesterday the Fair Chance for Education Project co-hosted (with the Warwick Education Studies Department) its first webinar! The webinar was on the topic of ‘Access to Higher Education in India’ and was very successful, drawing in almost 30 attendees.

The webinar, chaired by Emily Henderson, included a presentation by Nidhi S. Sabharwal (National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi) on ‘Dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education opportunities in India’, a presentation by Anjali Thomas (Warwick Education Studies) on ‘Role played by families in the educational trajectories of undergraduate students in Haryana, India’ and finally a presentation by Akhila Padmanabhan (Visiting student from Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum) on ‘The Role of Different actors in Higher Education Development: Evidence from Kerala, India’. Sudipa Sarkar, from the Warwick Institute for Employment Studies, also participated as the respondent to the three presentations.

The webinar was also widely attended by numerous participants with various experiences and expertise which made for a very rich discussion ranging from how much different factors have to play in students’ access to higher education to the impact that support from different family members can have. We were also delighted to welcome Sumir Karayi, co-founder of the Fair Chance Foundation, as well as members of the project’s Research Advisory Group and Consultative Group to the audience.

To be kept informed of future project events, you may want to follow us on Twitter: @FCFHaryana. You may also want to follow our speakers and respondent: @01Nidhi ; @AnjaliThomas001 ; @akhilapappan ; @SudipaSarkr