daycare

The high quality daycare that IISER Pune has started will reap huge dividends for them, maybe even in the short term. This I hope will encourage others to follow suit. There are still a large number of women capable of becoming phenomenally good scientists who do not achieve their potential simply because they have children. IISER may see brilliant women scientists coming to join there as faculty. As of now, women enter the work force if they have mothers/mothers-in-law willing to care for the children. This means the older women do not get to live their dreams. This generation of young women may have mothers who agree to give up their dreams for the sake of their grandchildren, but the next generation of grandmothers may still be at the peak of their  own careers when their daughters give birth. Unless we have high quality childcare at work places and a liberal leave policy for new parents, we will lose a lot of brilliant women. We see from the class XII results that girls very often  outdo boys in academics but fall behind along the way. I hope this generation of girls grow up to be great, fulfilled women and the establishment sees that they have a lot to gain by this.