Kota : Engineering education, which was once meant for boys only, is now being challenged by girls as well. The number of girls taking admission in the country’s most prestigious engineering institutes, IITs, is constantly increasing. The number of girls appearing in JEE-Advanced exam and taking admission in IITs is increasing year after year. This is proved by the fact that in the last 9 years, the number of girls taking admission in IITs has almost tripled.
‘Situation changed due to efforts of central government’
Career counseling expert Amit Ahuja said that this situation has changed after the efforts made by the central government to increase the inclination of girls towards engineering education in the country. The central government had announced female pool quota to encourage the admission of girls from the year 2018. This year, 14 percent of the seats were filled by female students through female pool quota. After this, in the year 2019, this quota was increased to 17 percent and after that from the year 2020, it was made 20 percent female pool quota. With this continuously increasing effort, the number of girls taking admission in IIT has almost quadrupled in the last 9 years. Expert Ahuja said that according to the data released by IIT, only 847 girls took admission in the year 2016. In the year 2017, 995 girls took admission. In the year 2018, 1852 girl students took admission including supernumerary seats, 2432 in the year 2019, 3197 in the year 2020, 3228 in the year 2021, 3310 in the year 2022, 3411 girl students took admission in IIT in the year 2023.
From 27778 girl students in 2016 to 41020 in 2024
Ahuja said that if we look at the figures of the past years, the number was 27778 in the year 2016 and 29872 in 2017, while in 2018, due to 14 percent female pool quota, the number increased to 31021, in 2019, due to 17 percent female pool, the number increased to 33249 and in the year 2020, 32851, in the year 2021, 32285 in the year 2022, 33608 in the year 2022 and 40645 in the year 2023 and in the year 2024, the highest ever 41020 students appeared in the examination. This increasing number of students shows their increasing inclination towards IIT. On the other hand, if we look at the difference in the status of students qualifying for admission, it has increased from 4570 in 2016 to 7964 in 2024.
Why is the number of girl students increasing?
According to Ahuja, the government started giving admission to female students on supernumerary seats to increase the number of female students for admission in IIT and to balance the ratio of male and female students in IIT. This made it easier for female students with lower ranks to get admission in IIT. Seeing this situation, the inclination of female students towards IIT studies increased. Now the situation has come to such a pass that the competition for each seat in the female pool quota is becoming like that of boys. After getting the option of supernumerary female pool seats, this year the cutoff for admission of male students in IIT Mumbai CS in the open category was 68 All India Rank, while the cutoff for female students from the female pool quota was up to 421 All India Rank.
These are also the reasons
Apart from field work, office work is also increasing in engineering education. In this, office work is increasing in design, creation and execution. Earlier, there was a lot of demand for field work in core branches like civil, mechanical, electrical, electronics, mining, and duty had to be given on construction sites. Due to this, girls used to avoid making a career in this field. Now many such courses related to data science, computer science, AI are coming which are proving useful for the girls along with a good career in a safe environment. That is why the inclination of girls towards engineering education is continuously increasing.
