Send Daughters To Engineering Coaching

The BW-DeCode survey says that Indira Gandhi, as PM, did most for women, but ranks BJP as the most women-friendly party.

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EVER WONDERED WHY THERE are so few women corporate leaders and entrepreneurs? While there have been belated attempts to promote women entrepreneurship, it’s public knowledge that women/girls’ representation in IITs and IIMs remains abysmally low, and the result is that there are so few women engineers, managers, and leaders.

But why do we have so few women students in IITs and IIMs?

BW Businessworld chose the International Women’s Day to probe the question, and in partnership with Decode did a nationwide and corporate India survey to ascertain the reasons. A whopping 74 percent respondents said that parents send sons and not daughters to coaching for engineering entrance!

Asked again, why do IIMs not have 50 percent women students, a whopping 70 percent felt that it was due to the fact the parents sent sons and not daughters to management entrance coaching!

Close to half of the respondents (46 percent) said that parents inculcated in daughters that marriage was their sole aim, as a result of which they were not conditioned to prepare for engineering/management entrance examinations.

Whether it’s entrepreneurship, management, or education, the place of girls or women therein is a crucial aspect. In India, however, there is a big question mark even over their birth: More than half (52 percent) of the mood of the nation and corporate India survey respondents said that girls never got an equal chance to be born in India.