The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA)’s latest PGP and PGP-FABM batches are one of the most diverse batches ever, in terms of gender and educational background.
While the 2-year full-time residential Post Graduate Program (PGP) has 28% female representation, it was 50% in the postgraduate program for food and agriculture business management (PGP-FABM), IIM-A said in a press release after the conclusion of registration for the two programs new batch of PGP and PGP-FABM concluded on June 30.
In PGP, Women constituted only 14% in 2015-17 that went up to 21% in 2016-18. PGP-FABM had recorded female representation at 39 % in 2015-17 and 46% in 2016-18.
In terms of diversity, non-engineers comprised 32% of the PGP class, stated to be the highest ever in more than 15 years. It was just 9% in the 2015-17 batch that went up to 20 % in the 2016-18 batch.
IIMA Director Ashish Nanda said, “In our discussion-based learning environment, diversity in student backgrounds and experiences helps enrich the learning process by bringing in different perspectives to the class. We at IIMA are delighted to welcome this diverse group of incoming students.”
In the case of PGP-FABM, ranked number 1 for the year 2017 in the Eduniversal Best Masters Ranking Agribusiness / Food Industry Management -Worldwide list of 50 educational institutions, 45% of the entering class were non-engineers.
Over the past three years in the percentage of women students have been going up for PGP with this year’s batch notching up 28% women, one of the highest ever. Prof Nanda, expressing happiness over the increasing representation of women, noted that it has been achieved without giving extra credits or holding specific quotas on account of gender.
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IIM-A did it through a combination of active recruitment of women candidates, encouraging discipline diversity of students selected for interviews and paying attention to holistic leadership potential among the applicants.
In the case of PGP-FABM, ranked number 1 for the year 2017 in the Eduniversal Best Masters Ranking Agribusiness / Food Industry Management -Worldwide list of 50 educational institutions, 45% of the entering class were non-engineers.
Professor Apratim Guha, chairperson of admissions at IIM-A, said, “Our admissions policy is to invite for interviews candidates from different academic disciplines based on their academic performances, subject to their clearing certain Common Admission Test (CAT) cut-offs. This approach increases the discipline diversity of our incoming class. This is part of a conscious effort to improve the in-class learning experience of students, who we believe will benefit from being in a class with people from diverse backgrounds.”
