The first Plenary Session of JCWE was chaired by Prof. Miriam David, Associate Director, Higher Education, University of London, England. The theme of this session was 'The Role of Women's Universities in Empowering Women'. Three speakers preponed the session with the approval of the chairperson and talked on their respective sub- themes.

The first speaker, Prof. Usha Thakkar, presented a talk titled 'The Role of Women's Universities in Empowering Women: Addressing Gender Issues'. This paper was a collective effort of the ideas of Prof. Usha Thakkar, the former director of Mani Bhavan, Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Mumbai and Prof. Neera Desai, the Former Director of Women Studies, SNDT University, Mumbai. She emphasised that the women should be economically, socially and academically strong so that not only the educated women increase in statistical numbers but the equality and quality also grow simultaneously. Therefore education should aim at fighting matrimonial and commercial ideology to bring the women centrestage.

The second speaker, Prof. Yogesh Atal, UNESCO's former Principal Director for Social and Human Sciences, talked of women beyond the domestic domain and began with the meaning of the term 'empowerment'. He proceeded his presentation with statistical information to support facts with figures. He also highlighted that in Rajasthan, the literacy rate among women has increased a lot over a decade as it was about 20.44% in the year 1991-92 which rose to about 40.41% by 2001. Prof. Atal suggested that there is a need to distinguish between education as a goal and education as a means of development and the educationists must review the goals of education. He proposed that education must be used as a weapon to make a dent at the entrenched patriarchial system and made a mention of the 11th five year plan focussing on the poor quality of education and high fees acting as barriers in the path of women education. To satisfy the urge for learning, strong support system with functionally literate is required to broaden cognitive horizons, and transmitting existing knowledge.

The next speaker, Prof. Jaya Indiresan, Ex. Prof. NIEPA, New Delhi, talked about Mentoring Women in Leadership. She focussed on the need for exclusive women institutions and highlighted the role of educational institutions to undo the undue cumulative distortions of the past. First, she talked of the personal, social and structural factors preventing the women from reaching leadership positions and discussed about low aspirations, low self- esteem, lack of family support, gender stereotype, discrimination, inequality, lack of women- friendly policies and women exclusive criteria. Another highlight was the career path of the women and the glass ceiling with problems at personal, social and institutional levels like the dilemma of choice of career, lack of counselling, misguidance, parental pressure, social restrictions, gender specific policies, sexist interviews, age bar and break in service. Focussing survival issues, she discussed about discrimination, subordination and stereotyping and suggested to adopt to 4Cs: Competence, Consciousness, Concern and Commitment and MBA- Moving Beyond Academics. The session ended without having discussions because of the paucity of time. The session ended with a vote of thanks.