75 per cent gold medals go to girls at IIT Hyderabad

Hyderabad: In the 7th convocation ceremony held at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IITH) this year, 75 per cent of the gold medals were secured by girls, despite the girl population of the campus being 20 percent. 

This time a total of four gold medals were awarded for academic and co-curricular excellence, of which three went to girls.

IIT Hyderabad has a comparatively better female population at 20 percent, while the other IITs struggle to maintain the gender ratio. 

Referring to this at the IIT convocation, President Ram Nath Kovind said, “It is encouraging to see that one in five of those graduating today in IIT Hyderabad are young women students.” This was the President’s main concern even in the recent convocation he addressed at IIT Kharagpur on July 20. He said that in the colleges and universities he had visited across the country, girl students won more medals and awards than their male counterparts and yet, when it came to IITs, the intake of girl students was distressingly low. 

He said this could not go on. We needed to do something about these numbers and the participation of women in higher education, science and technology and in the workforce of our country had to rise to fair and acceptable levels within the coming decade, he stated.

According to reports, in 2017 about 1,60,000 candidates appeared for the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced). Only 30,000 were girls. 

In 2017, 10,878 students got admission to the undergraduate class of the IITs; only 995 were girls. 

Ms Greeshma P.M., gold medalist, IITH, who secured a score of 9.95 in her M. Tech, said that she was very happy and proud of her achievement. The average percentage of girls in the IITs this year is 14 per cent. In the next academic year, the percentage is going to be increased to 17 per cent, according to the ministry of human resources development. The ministry is planning to increase the percentage of girls in technical streams in the centrally-funded technical institutes.

Mr Ramana Rao, Director, National Institute of Technology, said, “There are two main reasons for the low percentage of girls. One is that, girls pick courses like medicine and pharmacy, rather than technical courses, the other being the lower number of girls securing top ranks in the Joint Entrance Examination. These are the main problems.”

It seems parents are also culprits behind girls securing low ranks in IITs. Mr. Dheeraj, Professor, IIT Khanpur, said, “Girls do prefer engineering; that is quite evident in other engineering colleges apart from IITs. But the problem is with coaching, as parents do not send their girl children to other cities for better coaching. As a result, they are not able to secure top ranks. consistent guidance is mandatory for everyone.”