At 32%, IIM-A's incoming batch has the highest female ratio ever

28% of 395 PGP students, half of agri-business batch are women, up from 21% and 46% earlier

The incoming 2017-19 batch of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has seen the highest ratio yet of females in both the postgraduate programme in management (PGP) and the PGP-FABM, the agri-business management course.

The incoming PGP batch also has the highest ratio in 15 years of non-engineers, at 32 per cent.

About 28 per cent of the PGP batch of 395 people are females, up from 21 per cent in the earlier one. The FABM one has seen a jump from 46 per cent earlier to 50 per cent of the batch size of 46.

As for non-engineers, the PGP batch saw the share rise from 20 per cent a year before to 32 per cent in this one; FABM saw a rise from 26 per cent to 45 per cent.

IIM-A director Ashish Nanda says the diversity was achieved without giving extra credits or holding specific quotas on account of gender.

"In our discussion-based learning environment, diversity in student backgrounds and experiences helps enrich the learning process, by bringing different perspectives to the class. We are pleased with the increasing percentage of women students in our entering class. This has been achieved without giving extra credits or holding specific quotas on account of gender," he said.

The increased percentage, he said, was achieved through a combination of active recruitment of female candidates, encouraging discipline diversity in students called for interviews and paying attention to “holistic leadership potential” among those being interviewed. "A broad mix across gender will contribute to a richer learning environment at the institute," he added.

"Our admissions policy is to invite for interviews candidates from different academic disciplines, subject to their clearing certain CAT (entrance exam) cut-offs. This approach increases the discipline diversity of our incoming class. This is part of a conscious effort to improve the in-class learning experience of students, who we believe would benefit from being in class with people from diverse backgrounds," said Apratim Guha, chairperson, admissions.