IITs Witness Drop in the Female Aspirants

New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) has witnessed a drop in the number of female aspirants taking up IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination), for two successive years. It was proved according to the data released by the institutes.

As per sources, the registration data for this year’s IIT-JEE, which was released by Kanpur IIT director S.G. Dhande, shows 23.44 per cent of the candidates are girls. Last year, the percentage was 24.82. Also, the 24.82 per cent was a dip from 25.72 per cent of 2009.

However, the total number of candidates has increased from 4, 55,571 in 2010 to 4,85,918 this year. The 4.85 lakh students will compete for nearly 10,000 seats in 16 IITs as well as the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad. This means nearly 50 students will compete for each seat in the premier technology institutes.

The IIT-JEE 2011 will be held in 1,051 centres across the country on April 10. The dip in the percentage of girl aspirants is unusual as it had continuously risen from 1997 to 2009. About 10 per cent candidates for IIT-JEE were girls in 1997.

According to the statement of an IIT Director the registration of female candidates has been increasing except for the last two years. He said that will analyze the trend and see what can be done to get more female students to the IITs. He also added that the interest of girl students for engineering has always remained low compared to boys.

The sources have also informed that the enrolment of girls in IITs has always remained below 10 per cent. About 85,000 candidates will take the test under the IIT Bombay zone this year and nearly 58,000 students will appear in IIT Guwahati zone. About 63,000 students will sit for the test at 142 centres under the IIT Kharagpur zone.

The Joint Admission Board, which oversees the JEE preparations, met in Kanpur to take stock of the preparation. Dhande has said that the preparations are according to schedule. He also added that there will be no major change in the exam format or procedure this time. Besides, there were 9,509 seats in these institutes last year, the number of seats is expected to go up to about 10,000 this year.