Increase in Women Candidates at Business Schools

Woman candidates aspiring for top business schools across the country have a reason to cheer. Management institutes are putting in additional efforts to get more woman students on their campuses. Major B-Schools, including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI) Jamshedpur, and Indian School of Business (ISB), have taken initiatives to bring more women candidates on board.

At IIM Calcutta, Instead of having a group discussion as a criterion after the entrance examination, the institute now has a ‘business situation written analysis', followed by a discussion. According to Ashok Banerjee, dean (new initiatives and external relations) at IIM-C, woman students who often felt intimidated during group discussions are comfortable with the new format. There is a four per cent increase in the number of woman students this year, compared to last year.

At XLRI, there is a 40% increase in the number of woman students this year. Its human resource specialization field has more women than others. Soumendra Bagchi, XLRI admissions chairperson, said though no major steps were taken for this, everything else being the same, the panelists were asked to be sensitive to woman candidates and to those who show interesting/unique achievements. Last year, XLRI had only 47 woman students.

Breaking The Glass Ceiling:

• Major B-schools, including the IIMs, XLRI Jamshedpur and ISB, have taken initiatives to get more women students to admissions in their institutes.
• At IIM-Calcutta, there is a 4% rise in the number of women students this year, compared to last year.
• At XLRI, there is a 40% increase in the number of women students this year.
• Women form 17% of the students at IIM-Ahmedabad this year, compared to 11% earlier.
• IIM-Lucknow has seen over 150% rise in the number of women students in the 2012-14 batch compared to the 2011-13 batch.
• At ISB's two campuses, Hyderabad and Mohali, there are 216 women students out of a total class size of 767.
• At IIM-Kozhikode, 28% of students of the current batch are women.
• IIM-Bangalore has seen women students increasing by 17% this year from last year.

IIM-Ahmedabad has seen almost a six per cent rise in woman students this year. They form 17 per cent of the students this year, compared to 11 per cent earlier. IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B) has also seen a gradual increase in the number of women, which now stands at 100, an increase of about 17 per cent from last year.

M Jayadev, Chairperson said "While we are not compromising on the quality of our students, we are able to bring out an individual's personality,"

Jayadev also explained they had made a conscious effort at IIM-B to assess the candidates at the personal interview level on a qualitative basis, apart from looking at the academic proficiency.

IIM Lucknow has seen a 150% rise in the number of woman students in the 2012-14 batch, compared to the 2011-13 batch. As many as 166 woman students have been inducted this year in both the Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management and PGP in Agri Business Management, with a total batch size of 453 students. The 2011-13 batch had witnessed around 14% women students, when the total batch size was 419.

The Centre for Executive Education at ISB is working as an India academic partner with the Goldman Sachs Foun-dation on a global project, the ‘10,000 Women' Initiative'. This initiative aims at providing business management education to deserving women, predominantly in developing and emerging markets. Over the last three years, about 500 woman entrepreneurs have successfully completed the programme, not only in metros like Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, but also in smaller cities like Pune and Chandigarh.