R. Vasuki Priya is a fourth year mechanical engineering Student in a city college. She’s the only one in her class of 144. Sruthi Amirthagadeswaran is one among the four girl students in the third year mechanical engineering course at a deemed university.
The class has 180 students.
Their stories reflect the larger symptom of girls preferring other engineering disciplines to mechanical engineering, say academics.
There is this ill-conceived perception among parents that girls are not suited for jobs in mechanical engineering industries. It is this perception that impacts the admission process, says A.M. Natarajan, a senior academic.
The parents’ thinking is that their daughters will have to do hard labour on the shop floor, for which they are not suited for.
That is not the case, though, for things in manufacturing industries have changed in that hard labour forms only a part of the manufacturing process, what with the introduction of automation.
And, secondly, girls need not always work on the shop floor, argues another academic on condition of anonymity.
Girls with mechanical engineering degree opting for job in core manufacturing companies have the option of working in product design, production planning, quality control and a number of other areas, says K.S. Amirthagadeswaran, Head of the Department, Mechanical Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore.
Not only the options but the number of jobs is also high, says Jayaprakash Gandhi, academic consultant. With the Central Government encouraging companies in the manufacturing sector to bring about a gender balance at the workplace, the human resource departments of those companies are looking to employ girls with the right qualification but unfortunately they are not finding many.
It is right time that girls choose mechanical engineering discipline, he adds.
Ms. Sruthi says that she chose mechanical engineering because she wants to work in a manufacturing company and does not want a software job. “Unlike others I’m ready to get my hands dirty at the manufacturing place.”
Human resource managers of companies in the manufacturing sector say that they are looking for girls in production planning, supply chain management, research and development, where they have an edge over boys.
This is because they are meticulous, disciplined, and more committed to work.
A human resource manager says that the aforementioned sectors form the ‘soft’ part of the manufacturing process. For the ‘hard’ part of the manufacturing process that involves moulding and work on the shop floor, the companies prefer boys.
In short, there is good opportunity for girls in manufacturing industry, he adds.
Academics say they are trying to slowly change the perception by pointing out the job opportunities and the change in the production line itself. But the response is not as quick as it ought to be.
