NEW DELHI: The big push given by the government to help more girls get into the prestigious IITs may not be yielding much results, at least at the entrance stage. The number of women who have qualified in JEE-Advanced has fallen this year.
JEE-Advanced is the entrance test for admission into IITs and NITs. A total of 1,41,699 candidates appeared in both papers. Of the 41,862 who qualified, 6,452 or 15.41% are females. Last year, 6,707 or 15.52% were girls.
The government, based on recommendations by an expert panel from the IITs, had decided to raise the percentage of girls in these institutions to 20% by 2020. As in 2017, less than 10% of students in B Tech courses in IITs were girls.
For this purpose, for the three consecutive years, around 800-900 supernumerary seats were added in these institutes. As a result, the percentage of girls in IITs had reached 19.90% during the last academic session.
Many experts, however, pointed out that while adding supernumerary seats can be a measure to ensure girls’ presence in these institutes, more is required to get them interested in the field of engineering.
The results compiled also showed that among those qualified, 7,737 were of the Scheduled Caste category, 2,764 were from the Scheduled Tribes category and 9,150 belong to candidates from Other Backward Classes. In addition, 5,144 candidates categorised as from the economically weaker section from among general candidates were also declared as having qualified the entrance test. Of the 1,418 persons with disabilities, who had registered for the test, 375 candidates emerged successful.