Future Forum Haldwani
To increase the participation of women in technical education, the government has introduced a supernumerary quota for women in IIT’s. In India, the participation of women in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math has been low. To create a gender balance in STEM fields, in 2018 the government introduced 17% of supernumerary quota for female candidates in IIT’s. On Monday, IIT Delhi- which is the conducting authority for the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced), announced that for the academic session of 2020-21, the percentage of supernumerary reserved seats for women will go up from 17% to 20%.
“A decision has been taken at the level of the IIT council to, inter alia; improve the gender balance in the undergraduate programs at the IITs to at least 20% in 2020-2021 by creating supernumerary seats for female candidates,” IIT-Delhi said in an information brochure released on JEE (Advanced) website.
However, the quota is supernumerary which means that it will not affect the unreserved seats. Each institute will have to increase the overall number of seats and ensure that the enhanced quota doesn’t cut the number of unreserved seats.
According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) data, the addition of supernumerary seats for female candidates has helped improve the percentage of female students in IIT’s.