IIT-Kharagpur will raise the number of female students at its undergraduate level to give girls more scope in the institution, IITKGP director Prof Partha Pratim Chakrabarti has said.
"Women are not getting the same opportunity in comparison to male candidate. Even these days, some conservative families refrain from sending daughters to institutions like IIT. We have to break that. We have to give some more scope to women," Chakrabarti told reporters after the 63rd convocation of IITKGP recently.
Stating that women comprise nine per cent of the total number of students in IITKGP at the undergraduate level, an academician said, "We, 3-4 IITs, will together find out a method for promotion of women without reducing the seats and accordingly move the MHRD."
"It will not be reservation. Technically it will be for promotion of women, giving additional seats without reducing opportunity for others and by maintaining quality," he said.
"While women comprise less than 10% of the IIT KGP undergraduate student force, you have seen that around 40% of award winners in this convocation were girls. This shows women are more serious and their intelligence is equal.
They only need more opportunities," he said.
The recipients of this year's gold medals included a number of girls.