IITs to increase seats to accommodate girl students

File photo of students appearing for IIT-JEE exam in Vijayawada.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will add more seats to be filled by girl students for four years starting 2018 to increase the representation of women in the prestigious institutions.

While there are just eight-per cent women in the IITs right now, the idea is to increase the proportion to 20 per cent and then discontinue the practice of additional seats for women.

“Four per cent seats will be added each year for the next four years in order to bring the representation of women in the IITs from the present eight per cent to 20per cent,” said a top functionary of one of the IITs.

This quota will be filled from among the girl students who have cleared the JEE (Advanced) exam.

Inspiring others

It is expected that the girl students so admitted will become a role model for many other girls and in the long run make a higher proportion of women in the IITs a self-sustainable goal. “Many parents do not want to send girls to places like Kota for coaching. Such factors have kept the proportion of female students in the IITs abysmally low. We hope that our attempt to boost representation for the next four years, beginning with 2018, will change this,” the functionary said.

But is it not the same as reservation?

“In reservation, seats are taken from what is available. Here, seats are being added for a few years without deducting from the available seats,” an official said.