IITs to Hike Female Student Enrollment to 20 % by 2020

In a bid to raise the number of girl students in the IITs, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has introduced a four-pronged formula aimed at increasing the ratio of girl students in IITs from 8% to 20% by 2020-2021.

The MHRD sent out a letter to all the IITs on July 28. The letter details on how these premier institutes can motivate young girls towards a career in engineering, and provide them with systematic help in cracking the JEE (advanced).

IITs will be identifying meritorious girls from Class VIII in their respective catchment areas. Besides providing them coaching, they also aim to counsel them and their parents.

The second strategy involves inviting interested girl students to the IITs and give them a fair idea of life at and after IIT.

"Some parents think engineering is a subject or the IITs as a destination are meant more for boys. Some assume fluency in English is required to study in the country's premier technology institutes. We want to dispel all these wrong ideas," explained a senior IIT official.

"The idea is to identify some of the more promising students and then get them hooked on to the idea of studying in an IIT," a faculty member, privy to the developments said.

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The MHRD asked the IITs to leverage the IIT Professor Assisted Learning (IIT-PAL) scheme to enhance the performance of girls in sciences at the school level. The program requires an internet connection or a DTH set-up.

"Interested girl students can watch lectures on chemistry, physics, mathematics and statistics that are recorded by IIT teachers. Lecture recordings are there for biology as well," an IIT-Kharagpur faculty member said.

"Often, meritorious students in villages have no idea about how to crack the JEE. We have come up across umpteen cases of families not sending girl students to enrol in IIT coaching classes. These decisions will help girl students, especially those staying in remote areas or those coming from financially weaker sections of society," he added.

"Some parents think engineering is a subject or the IITs as a destination, is meant more for boys. Some assume fluency in English is required to study in the country's premier technology institutes. We want to dispel all these wrong ideas," explained a senior IIT official. He also emphasised on the need for such programmes that bust myths related to girls not being good at Science.

Such measures will definitely aid young girls who are looking forward to building a career in engineering.

Read Also: IIT-Delhi Sees 30% Rise in Female Students after Third Round of Counselling