Students' Corner

Dear Students,
 

LAST WEEK WE ASKED: Do you think B-schools should lay special emphasis on enrolling more women students?

 

BEST REPONSE

 

While I totally promote participation of the fairer gender in chairing an organization's pivotal management role, I believe special emphasis should only be given by way of lucrative incentives such as relaxation in tuition fees, sponsoring their team when they participate in any academic or sports competition, providing them accommodation in the institute's campus or a safe nearby locality, making sure they develop in their interest area and helping them break cover of their latent potential. Allocation of certain number of seats for women is an idea which gives birth to inefficient students filtering in the system.
 

— Saumik P. Batham, College of Legal Studies, UPES

 

OTHER RESPONSES

 

No doubt, a special emphasis given to women for admissions in B-schools will give them a better chance to showcase their potential, but it may make them feel take things for granted. In today’s world where we see men and women equally, such emphasis or reservations will make them a separate cluster of the favored one. All students should be equally given chance irrespective of gender or caste and the best one will make his/her way up.
 

— Rahul Tiwari, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU

 

 

Internationally, B-schools lay greater emphasis on having gender diversity on their campuses as the ranking of a B-school depends on gender diversity on its campus. In India too, we see such moves taken by several B-schools for the same and the reason being that more female students bring diverse perspective to classroom discussions. Also, female managers are better than men at handling emotions and are inborn multitaskers as has been proven by many research works over time. Successful female CEOs like Indra Nooyi, Chanda Kochar, Shikha Sharma, and numerous other examples can be found in the corporate world today.
 

— Mohit D. Marakna, FMS-Baroda, The MS University of Baroda, 

 

 

B-schools should put special emphasis in taking more women students to bring more diversity and a healthy peer culture. Having a group heavily dominated by one gender makes the minority gender introvert and inflexible. Secondly, saying  that key posts can not be handled by women is being hogwash.
 

— Piyush Mittal, P.E.C. UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH

 

 

Yes, I think B-Schools should lay special emphasis on women students because women can prove to be better managers in the corporate world and they can balance between both home personal and professional life. Women prove to be better HR managers too. Women should get an extra opportunity to enroll themselves. It will not be a question of equality if this is done by B-schools, infact, the nation will be proud. 

 

— Utsa Dutta, IBS Business School, Kolkata 

 

Women have a poor 11 per cent representation in India's Lok Sabha and 10.6 per cent in the Rajya Sabha. There is always an inequality between men and women.B-schools in India should definitely emphasize on taking more number of women candidates rather than simply having a majority of male students. Having a mix of both genders will obviously lead to development of fresh and different ideas. In today's world women are no way less competitiv. Having more women students on campus that will ultimately become part of industry, hence improving society outlook for women.

 

— Rashmi Sharma, IBS Business School, Kolkata

 

It is true that B-Schools are perceived as male bastions. Even parents are protective and hold back daughters from going overseas for education. But usually the unsaid requirement of 2-3 years of work experience for MBA admission becomes the main problem as parents want their daughters married soon. To prove otherwise we have personas like Chhavi Rajawat, Indra Nooyi, Lalita D Gupte, Renuka Ramnath and so many others. Few Indian B-Schools do provide incentives like scholarships, clubs, associations and accommodation for married couples to encourage women to realize their dreams. But long-term solution is to change the mindset of people.

 

— Swapnil Rayjada, MBA (Energy & Infrastructure), School of Petroleum Management, Gandhinagar

 

 

The call of the day is gender equality. Providing equal status to both men and women in terms of economic, social, political spheres of the society is inevitable. But the question remains, before imposing such principle both men and women must be brought at equal platform. After all a fair race means that all start from one point. Our society is male dominated, it is true women potential and contribution is rising but the pace is slow.  The acceleration of pace is only possible by encouraging female participation in all dimensions. Hence, I support the statement. 
 

— Mohit Shaw, Institute of Companies Secretaries of India (ICSI), 

 

If one more to reckon management practice as a blend of craft (experience) art (insight) and science (analysis),then girls can reasonably claim to have an in built advantage : they outshine boys insight and analysis. Add multitasking abilities and tolerance of ambiguity, the scale decisively tilts in their favour. Empirical proof: Merit positions in most of the professional courses have been going to girl students (including my institute) over the last few years. Clearly, an open and shut case in favour of having more girl students in B-Schools! "

 

— Garima Nanda, PGDM(IBM), Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida

 

Women are still the marginalised part of our society and it cannot be over emphasised than by showing the statistics of women taking admission in top B-school. In this age of globalisation how many Indra Nooyi can we boost of. That being said the colleges must not give undue preference to woman in B-School's. They should be encouraged to keep the balance of diversity and admit more female students but with a healthy respect for fair competition. With some premier B-school such as IIM's moving towards that path, I surely see light at the end of the tunnel.

 

— Muzaffar Khan Waris, School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal petroleum University

 

B-schools should not have more emphasis on enrolling women; rather they should encourage them by applying in the institutes for quality of education. This is so, by giving some amount of reservation will not encourage the quality output in industries. A quality education to a right candidate in a right institute would anyway help in this competitive scenario.  There are jobs in corporate world which acquire by women and women are competing with men at par on diverse profiles in industries.

 

— Anand Trivedi, School of Petroleum Management, PDPU

 

It is quite important for B-schools to have good mix of gender to bring diverse approaches on subject matter as well as industry at large. Women play crucial role in society similarly healthy development of economy depends on their ideas and opinions leading to altogether different stance in contrast to the mundane masculine approach. Consequently, some colleges do give brownie points to women, but alongside, it is necessary to retain women within industry by providing relaxation for family responsibilities. In totality, it is beneficial to enroll more women candidates even with the downside of compromise in minor differential of quality.

 

— Shivam Chhabra, Integral University, Lucknow

 

Enrolling more women will help enhance the role of women in the business world dominated by males.As women in the recent past have outperformed men in almost every field but where they lack is the holding key positions in business firms,this lacunae can be filled by enrolling more women students which  will definitely help bring balance in the business world where the women  account for a very acute percentage.

 

— Jatin Kashyap, Post Graduate Government College,Sector-11,Chandigarh

 

Any country has approximately half of the population as female. If the country doesn't give an opportunity to half of the population then it can't expect to be a superpower. In India B School have already started the drive to enroll more women student to the campus. Currently India has huge demographics dividend and more and more jobs are being created in the private sector so there is a great urgency in creating future women manager. This step will also help to manage gender ratio at work place.  

 

— Nilaya Mitash Shanker, MBA 2nd year (Class of 2014)

 

Women dominance in B-schools has reached to growth stage as of now and requires little boost to reach at maturity stage. Today India has good growth in education vis-à-vis previous era. Batch profiles of most of B-schools depicting women enrolment at good stage. Chanda Kochhar, Arundhati Bhattacharya and many others paradigms of successful corporate women have proved themselves in such competitive male dominance world. Such news invigorated mindsets of uneducated people to foster women education.  If such auspicious time continues it doesn’t require for B-schools to lay special emphasis on enrolling more women students. 

 

— Pratik Patel, Institute: School of Petroleum Management, PDPU

 

The B schools should put special emphasis in taking more women students to bring more diversity and healthy peer culture . Having a group heavily dominated by one gender makes the minority gender introvert and inflexible  . Secondly saying  that the key post can not be handled by women is being hogwash if going by the latest announcements of SBI first women chairperson, LIC first women MD and CEO.

 

— Piyush Mittal

 

I  do not think so. Well, being a female student naturally grants me the liberty of being straightforward in saying this; a male student would have been labelled as a chauvinist instead ! Indeed the flavour of the batch is maintained by an even number of the fairer sex, yet academics is all about brains and skills, something which is not derived from your gender. 

Let’s get just. Women equality definitely excludes all singular provisions for them. ANYWHERE. And it is all about what you gather in those 2 years at your B-School. Your sex, your classmate’s sex, hardly counts.

 

— Poornima Pankaj Kulkarni, School of Petroleum Management,Ahmedabad

 

Your responses should reach us at edu@business-standard.com by Monday evening every week. Please ensure that your responses do not exceed 100 words. Avoid attachments and email your full name, institute's name, batch and complete mailing address. The student who gives the 'Best Response' will be awarded Rs 500.

 

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do you it would be a good idea by UGC to replace BA, BSc with vocational courses?