The traditionally male-dominated classrooms in business schools are set to see more women. Across the country, B-schools are trying to raise female enrolment.
The Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), for example, is offering the Novartis Scholarship for women educated from small towns and also providing special infrastructure. It has provisions for creche and child care to encourage married women to take up the one year full-time programme for executives. The current batch of 573 students has 29 per cent female candidates, up two per cent since last year.
“There has been an overall increase in participation by female candidates for the programme. We are providing campus accommodation for both singles and married couples. The provision for creches and child care has been an encouragement for experienced and married women to join the programme,” says A M Kannan, director – admissions and financial aid, at ISB.
Mumbai-based S P Jain Institute of Management and Research is making changes in its campus structure. “We have been reorganising infrastructure to accommodate more female participants. More women are taking up management education, a welcome sign,” says Parimal Merchant, chairperson - admissions. The proportion of female participants rose from 42 per cent last year to 45 per cent this year.
Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K), is trying to ensure at least 33 per cent of its batch is female. The institute inducted 121 women in its batch of 344 students, which is about 35 per cent, a high for the IIM system.
Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM-K, said their admission process gives importance on consistency of performance, as opposed to a singular obsession with CAT (common admission test) scores. “We interviewed a larger pool of students, which meant we had access to better talent diversity. Also, the weightage was allocated based on the overall performance a student has displayed. This means we took into consideration high school and graduation marks as well,” says Chatterjee.
At the 50-year Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) the ratio of female candidates has increased from five per cent to 11 per cent in the past four years. About a fifth of admissions this year to XLRI, Jamshedpur, with a batch of about 240 students, are women. “Most of the students come from an engineering background. There are about 50 women in the two courses this year,”said Pranabesh Ray, dean.