IIMs See Improved Gender Ratio: Over 50 percent women enrol in IIM Kozhikode, 69 percent in IIM Rohtak

This year, the Indian Institutes of Management saw improvement in the sex ratio in spite of the disruption caused by the pandemic. IIM Kozhikode has completed its Post Graduate Programme (PGP) for the admission process of the upcoming year. This batch is a diverse one. For the first time in many years, 52 percent of the students are female.

For IIM Kozhikode, the class of 2022 will also be a culturally diverse one with 35 percent of the students coming from northern India, 28.4 percent from southern India, 14.8 percent from western India, 13.4 percent from eastern India, 5.7 percent from central India and 2 percent from northeastern India.

Moreover, 40 percent of the 2024 batch is from non-engineering branches such as architecture, the arts, the sciences, commerce, and so on.

IIM Rohtak has 69 percent of women in its PGP batch, This is the highest ever number of women across the IIMs. Only three years ago in 2017, women accounted for a mere nine percent of the total number of students in the institute.

Both the IIMs are giving classes online. IIM Kozhikode is set to complete third-term classes and classes for the 2019-21 batch, while for the 2020 batch, the fourth-semester classes will commence on 10 August.

The first class of the 2020-22 batch will be given online on 12 August. The institute will also hold a virtual orientation for the new students before classes begin.

The director of IIM Rohtak believes that one of the reasons why there are so many women candidates this time could be the fact that the institute started classes as per schedule in spite of the pandemic.

The director said, “We reached out to female applicants who were eligible for admissions to IIMs… There were 12,000 such candidates. Additionally, we tied-up with five banks to facilitate loans for fee payment.”

The director added that their reputation for research could also have attracted students.