Kolkata: On Monday i.e. November 15, 2010, Directors of five Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) held a conference and felt that there is a need to change the quantitative bias in the Common Admission Test (CAT) in order to admit more girl students and students from diverse academic backgrounds in their classrooms.
While concluding the discussion, Mr. Sekhar Chowdhury, Director, IIM-Calcutta said that the issues would be dealt with seriously though it was not yet certain that the changes could take place from next year's CAT. In addition, Devi Singh, Director, IIM-Lucknow said that in many cases, despite efforts to get in students from other backgrounds, the number of engineering students has increased.
Further, Ms. Singh added that the blame is on their admission process. They need to change how they admit students and how CAT is organized, she added. Furthermore, she said that though a large section of the faculty would not have been favorably disposed to the idea of having a greater diversity in students, now the realization has dawned on them and in the next few years they may see a change in the system.
Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIM-Bangalore believed that girl students found the CAT examination with its stress on mathematics a deterrent. He said that that's the reason many girl students do not sit for the entrance test. As per sources, nearly two lakh students sit in the annual CAT exam for admission into 2000 seats in the country's ten IIMs.
