Gender Disparity at IITs: Why more Boys qualify JEE than Girls?

One of the most severe problems in the education systems of India is the gender disparity at educational institutions especially at the premier institutes like IITs. According to a research conducted by Aspiring Minds, IITs received very few female applicants and even fewer girls enrolled for courses. This has resulted in an imbalance of the male to female ratio at IITs.

Fewer girls enrolled for technical education has questioned various aspects of the Indian education system including the accessibility of education to girls in India. Although there has been a considerable rise in the number of girls applying for exams like JEE Mains, the number of girls qualifying the exams are very few. Furthermore, there are very less number of girls in the top 100 scorers.

Distribution of Girls and Boys in IITs:

According to records, 9,974 students got enrolled in 18 IITs in 2015 and only 900 of these were girls. The percentage of girls enrolled in IITs was just 8% in 2015-16. The gender disparity problem is a bigger problem at IITs.

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However, the percentage is better in mid-level colleges and above average colleges as the number of girls who secure ranks beyond 500 are much more than those who secure ranks in the 1 to 500 range of JEE Mains. 46.60% of girls secured admission in other AICTE-approved colleges.

Out of the 1,24,741 students who registered for JEE Advanced in 2015, only 3,049 girls qualified the exams whereas the number of boys who cracked the exam was 23,407. In 2016. Only 147 girls secured positions within the top 1000 students.

Check out the year-wise success rate of boys in JEE Advance:

Let’s find out why more boys qualify JEE than girls:

• Lack of Motivation: In the middle-class families, there are fewer expectations from girls than from boys. Usually, girls don’t get enough motivation to outperform boys. In some rare cases, girls are also held back as parents are not willing to spend required amount of money to provide them with coaching classes and preparatory sessions.
• Problem with subject-oriented aptitude tests: Various studies have proved that girls – not only in India but in countries like US, UK, Germany, Sweden, etc. – are not able to perform well in problem-orientated aptitude tests. It has been noted that boys outperform girls in such tests whereas girls perform better in subjects like English, Sociology, Biology, etc.
• Selection Procedure: IITs focus on selecting the creamy layer of students i.e. the top 5% of students who have qualified the JEE Mains Entrance exam. The institutes need to have a broad selection criteria in order to balance gender diversity at the institutes and increase the number of female students.

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How to solve the problem?

• Experts suggest that IITs need to adopt broader selection criteria instead of sticking to merit lists based on JEE Mains and JEE Advanced in order to balance the male to female ratio.
• IITs must follow the example of MIT, Boston and other institutes of global standards that select students not only on the basis of merit but give preference to students who demonstrate other extraordinary or unique skills.
• Encouraging girls to pursue careers in technical fields by providing them with proper preparatory channels and material.