The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have decided to admit more women candidates from 2018 session. In order to address the decline of women aspirants at the leading engineering institutions of the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has directed to increase admissions of female candidates and a separate merit list for them.

The suggestion is to ensure that 14 percent admissions are of female applicants. Officials have further reported that the exact number would vary and will be decided on a year to year basis. This will be increased every academic year from 2018 till the number of female students touched to 20%. According to media reports, the current strength of women students is just 8 percent at 23 IITs across the nation. But many voices have raised objections against this recommendation as they see it to be the introduction of gender reservation in IITs without calling it by that name. Senior officials are also of the view that a separate merit list may hamper the rationale of meritocracy.

However, as per the guidelines, this move would in no way affect the admissions of students or change the number of seats. The idea is to fill the supernumerary seats only which means over and above, without changing the existing tally of seats. Last year, the seats across IITs stood at 11,509 from 10,988. IITs must confirm that there are at least 14 percent girls in the hired batch. Only candidates who have already qualified in JEE Advanced will be considered to fill the seats. It is aimed solely to reduce the gender gap in the technical higher education. In addition, the HRDM has further suggested long-term measures to be taken at the school level so that more girls take JEE Advanced. Reports reveal that there has been a 2 percent dip in the number of girls who cleared JEE Advanced in 2016 as compared to 2015.

JEE Advanced 2018 will be conducted by IIT Kanpur on May 20th online or CBT mode. About 2,24,000 who qualify JEE Main 2017 will be invited to write the JEE Advanced 2018.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 17, 2018 12:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).