IIM-L moves to gender equality in campus

New batch has 46% girl students compared to 38% in the previous batch

The Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) has moved towards greater gender equality in campus by giving admissions to more girls in postgraduate programmes (PGP).

The percentage of female students in the 2014-16 PGP batch has increased to 46 per cent compared to 38 per cent last year (2013-15 batch).

Against the total of 453 students in PGP in Management (PGPM) and PGP in Agri Business Management (ABM), the number of girls and boys stand at 210 and 243, respectively.

It was a deliberate strategy by the IIM-L during the PGP admission process to ensure diversity on the campus without compromising on merit.

In the previous two batches, the percentage of girls remained below 40 per cent.

IIM-L Director Devi Singh said the institute wanted a class which had a broad base in terms of diversity — gender wise, background wise and also in terms of prior work experience.

“We are happy that to some extent the institute has been successful in this objective, but there are still many steps to be taken to create an ideal diverse environment,” he noted.

In fact, PGP ABM has more female students than males at 23 and 21, respectively, of the total 44 students.

PGP in Management has 187 and 222 female and male students, respectively.

Meanwhile, majority of the students still have engineering background (almost 75 per cent in PGPM and 66 per cent in PGP ABM), although their percentage has come down compared to the previous years.

Of the total 253 students, 151 candidates do not possess any work experience, while 99 students have work experience of more than two years.