The increase in the ratio indicates the shift towards creating equal spaces, towards progress and development, for both women and men. (File photo)
Paving a way for gender equality, an increase in the ratio of female-male graduates from 25:75 (2017 batch) to 50:50 (2018 batch) has been recorded. Sea improvement has been witnessed as less than 10 per cent women graduated in 2016. This indicates the shift towards creating equal spaces, towards progress and development, for both women and men. The graduating batch of Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) 2018 of IIM Ahmedabad presents an example that harnesses gender equity and equality not just in the number of doctoral researchers but also as future academicians.
Prof Amit Garg, Chairperson – FPM, IIMA said, “The increasing gender balance in the graduating class indicates women are rising much faster than men in acquiring high levels of specialisation in management education at IIMA”.
In 2016, a total of 12 students graduated out of which 11 were males and 1 female. The year 2017 witnessed slight improvement with 18 students graduating, out of which 14 were males and 4 were females. It was this year that the gap appeared to be bridged with 16 students graduating — 8 males and 8 females.
Ms. Sarita Vishwanathan, FPM (Public Systems Group) student states, “Today, we can proudly say that each one of us stand here as graduate students purely on the basis of merit and not as a result/consequence of quota or any other form of allocation/apportionment”.
Ms Biswajita Parida, FPM (Marketing) student said, “Research indicates that significant differences exist between male and female brains in terms of information processing, learning, dealing with emotions, perception, memory, and multi-tasking abilities. Therefore male and female minds need to equally participate and brainstorm together to bring about wholesome yield which have implications for the mass”.