Reservation for Female Candidates at IITs a Possibility

Taking note of the gender diversity problem at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), a committee was formed to balance the enrollment of girl students at these institutes. The committee has recommended that IITs should start providing reservation for female candidates in order to increase the number of female enrollment.

According to sources, the committee has suggested that the number of female candidates can be increased by providing up to 20% supernumerary seats for female candidates out of the total number of seats. The committee also added that the reservation will not be permanent. Reserved seats for female students will be provided for 8 years, i.e. till the enrollment reaches 20% of the total student intake.

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Female candidates who have cleared JEE-Advanced and have been placed in the top 20 percentile of their respective board exams will be eligible to take admission through the 20% supernumerary quota.

These recommendations will be discussed at the meeting of the joint admission board (JAB) in order to come to a final decision. If the board agrees to implement the scheme, the reservation will be implemented from the session 2018. However, the number of seats offered up for reservation will be decided by individual IITs.

The reservation will be incorporated in a manner that it will not affect the number of seats available for male candidates. Furthermore, it will also help in achieving the 1 lakh student strength target by 2010.

In order to have a long-term effect, recommendations were also made to enhance the education of female students at school levels.

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According to reports, there has been a dip of 2% in the number of girls who qualified JEE-Advanced in 2016 as compared to the numbers in 2015. The total number of students who made it to the 23 IITs was 10,500.

Over 1000 female candidates qualified JEE Advanced in 2015 making up to 10% of the total student population. Whereas in 2016 only 840 female students cleared the exam, reducing the percentage to 8%.