Only 2.7 Lakh Girls Against 6.5 Lakh Boys Take JEE Mains

That their is a gender divide in premier engineering institutes, is not a new thing.  But what is more concerning is as per reports by TOI, many schools have stated that fewer girls are opting to take up JEE after Class XII. From the upcoming academic year, IITs will reserve 14% quota for girls. This decision came after considering the overall female ratio across IITs which only juggled between 8% and 9% over the years. However, these attempts to encourage more participation from female students isn't faring well it seems.

Schools believe, there is a diminishing interest among girls towards engineering.

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The Joint Engineering Examination (Main) test was held over the last two weekends. The test is the gateway into IITs, NITs and centrally funded technical institutions. Approximately 2.66 lakh girls and 6.46 lakh boys took the test.

At the IIT-M campus, of the total 8,000 odd students only about 2,000 are women with 15% women at UG level. The trend of low registrations is continuing since years. In II-M zone, in 2016, women only aggregated to 12.9% of the total qualifiers who proceeded to the advanced round. Only 84 women qualified out of the total 651 final qualifiers from Tamil Nadu.

Schools also point out that the level of interest in engineering has dropped among girls in comparison to medicine which still appears to be a popular option. Shobha Raman, principal of Vidya Mandir (CBSE) told TOI, “among 110 science students that we sent out, only 25 to 30 girls showed enthusiasm towards engineering. The number has been dipping over the last 4 to 5 years. While many girls take up medicine, another good chunk of science students pursue pure sciences.”

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FIITJEE earlier reported that boys make up for approximately 90% of enrollments in their centre.