There is an urgent need to address the low female students issue at the IITs: President Kovind

There is an urgent need to address the low female students issue at the IITs: President Kovind

On Friday, President Ram Nath Kovind expressed his concern over the low numbers of female candidates in the IITs and said that the matter must be given priority and treated as a national priority. “The IIT system has given every Indian many moments of happiness and pride. Yet there is one issue that continues to puzzle and concern me. When it comes to IITs, the intake of girl students is distressingly low,” Kovind said during his address at the 64th annual convocation of IIT-Kharagpur. “In 2017, about 1,60,000 candidates appeared for the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced). Only some 30,000 were girls… I am told that 11,653 students are enrolled at IIT-Kharagpur at present, but only 1,925 are girls —a little over 16 percent,” he said. Appealing to the IITs to change this trend, the President said: “This cannot go on. We need to do something about these numbers. The participation of women in higher education, in science and technology, and in the workforce of our country has to rise to fair and acceptable levels within the coming decade. This should be a national priority, and the IIT community must take the lead.” IITs have already taken various initiatives and steps to attract more female students to the institutions.

source https://www.brainbuxa.com/education-news/there-is-an-urgent-need-to-address-the-low-female-students-issue-at-the-iits-president-kovind-8526