Archive · 6 Sep 2025
IITs Struggle to Increase Female Student Representation
Imagine the IITs, which are like really tough colleges for future engineers.
To help more women study there, they started giving extra spots just for them in 2018.
This worked a bit, making the number of women go up.
But even though more women are getting in, the percentage of women isn't really going up much.
So the IITs are working on making it easier for women to feel welcome, like better places to live and more support, to make sure everyone feels like they belong.
IITs introduced a supernumerary quota for women in 2018 to address gender imbalance.
The policy increased female enrollment to between 19-21% across campuses.
Absolute numbers of women admitted have increased, but the proportion remains around 20%.
The policy has halted the decline but not significantly increased inclusivity.
IITs are working on structural and cultural changes to improve the experience for women.
- Who
- Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
- What
- Implemented a quota for women in undergraduate engineering
- When
- 2018
- Where
- IIT campuses
- Why
- To remedy gender imbalance.
- Policy Change
- Supernumerary quota for women
- Year Introduced
- 2018
- Female Enrollment (Pre-Quota)
- Declining
- Female Enrollment (Post-Quota)
- 19-21%
- Total Admissions 2020
- 16,053
- Total Admissions 2025
- 18,168
- Female Student Proportion
- Around 20%
