Female students’ interest in BTech courses rising: Admission data

The number of female students enrolling on BTech courses in top technical institutes of the country is rising year after year, reveals a scrutiny of admission data of Prayagraj-based Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) and Indian Institute of Information Technology–Allahabad (IIIT-A).

Officials of both institutions testify to the fact that the number of female students enrolling to pursue BTech courses in their respective institutes has seen an upward trend for the past few years.

At MNNIT—Uttar Pradesh’s lone NIT—the number of female students taking admission in the nine branches/specialisations of BTech in current academic session accounts for 21 per cent of total admissions while at IIIT-A also their numbers account for over 20 per cent in the current session, they say.

MNNIT registrar Sarvesh Tiwari said at his institute the count of female students taking admission in BTech courses had been on a steady rise for the past three years. In academic session 2020-21, a total of 1,060 students were admitted to MNNIT and this included 222 female students (20.94 per cent). In 2019-20 session, against a total of 936 new admissions, 163 female students (17.41 per cent) had taken admission while in 2018-19 also, of the total 886 newcomers, 137 (15.46 per cent) were females, he added.

“In academic session 2021, we admitted 436 students in BTech courses that included 88 (20.18 percent) female students while in the academic session 2019-20 we had admitted 384 students in BTech courses that had also included 67 (17.44percent) female students while in session 2018-19 a total of 292 students had taken admission in BTech courses including 42 (14.38 percent) female students,” said IIIT-A’s acting registrar prof Vijaishri Tewari. IIIT-A offers BTech in three specialisations, including information technology, electronic and communication engineering and IT business informatics.

In a bid to bring about gender equality in terms of students enrolling at top technical institutions of the country, the central government had introduced supernumerary (extra) seats reserved for female students in all top engineering colleges and had been raising their numbers in past years.

At present, the female students have 20 per cent supernumerary seats reserved for them. But officials say the majority of girls taking admissions are doing so on the strength of their own ranks in admission exams.

“At IIIT-A, we had 88 seats reserved for female students under supernumerary seats in 2020-21 but just 25 of them took admission against these seats. Out of the 88 that took admission, 63 did so on the basis of their ranks in all-India entrance test,” said prof Tewari.