Boys to Fall Short of Girlfriends in IIT Indore This Year: Hard Luck Guys!

New batch joining the premier engineering institute Indian Institute of Technology in Indore (IIT- I), may be missing on the feminine touch on campus this time. The number of girl students joining the undergraduate and postgraduate courses is abysmally low this year. Well, so much so that the sex ratio at the IIT I has hit the lowest figure in last 3 years this time.

A total of 218 students have been admitted in various courses out of which only 34 are girls. Previous year, overall 237 students were admitted in the college, of which only 39 were girls.

In the B Tech program of IIT- I, the boys will have enough time to concentrate on studies now! Jokes apart, 11 girls are a part of the program while there are 108 male students in the program. There are only 5 girls in the computer science engineering program while there are 3 each in electrical and mechanical engineering programs. In 2013-2014 batch, all 120 seats in B Tech program were filled, out of which 14 were awarded to female entrants. A maximum of 23 girls were admitted in 2012-2013 which was the highest number among all new IITs of the country.

A student who will be joining B Tech program in IIT- I (wishing anonymity) told the media, “I studied in a boys’ school and thought that things will change after going to college. But it seems that things will remain the same even now. Yet, things will be more interesting than school as there are a few girls at least.”

Nonetheless, in post graduate program the ratio is better than the B Tech program, if not worse. As in the M Sc. program, there are 13 boys and 10 are girls. In the M Tech program, there are 3 girls and 21 boys and in the PhD program there are 10 females in a batch of 51 students, altogether. IIT- I had launched its M Sc. in physics and chemistry programs along with M Tech last year.

IITs are not the only institutes witnessing an imbalance in students’ sex ratio. Even IIMs are facing a similar drift. The IIMs have been constantly thinking of ways to bring more girls into the pool. Couple of years ago, Calcutta IIM had decided to award additional marks to female candidates. Thus, the number of short- listed women candidates doubled to from 170 to 395, in 2012. Even other IIMs have employed the same strategy.

Former director of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar also recommended granting more marks to the girls, in a bid to improve the skewed gender ratio in IITs, even if they their performed the same as boys. Kakodkar was appointed by the Union HRD ministry to suggest reforms in the IIT admissions and selection procedure.