Thursday 25 July 2013

New IIT-Gandhinagar batch has only 10% girls in Academic Year 2013-14

Out of the 134 incoming students at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn), 14 are female. Nine students from Gujarat will be joining the Institute, out of which five are from Ahmedabad. IIT-Gn began the 2013-14 academic year with a month-long foundation program for new students.

Last year, 120 students joined IIT-Gn, out of which nine were girls. The increase is minimal, but encouraging. IIT-Gn offers BTech courses in four branches, namely chemical, civil (introduced this year), electrical and mechanical. With 35 seats in each branch, the total number of seats this year is 140.

Parents accompanied the students on the first day of the foundation program. The campus was buzzing with students from all over India. Students from Anantnag in Kashmir to Kaimur in Bihar could be seen anxiously asking questions regarding the hostel, curriculum and festivals to the faculty.

"I was getting admission in IIT Bombay but not in the branch of my choice, so I chose IIT-Gn instead," said Rishi Bubna from Mumbai, who got an All India Rank (AIR) of 4739 in JEE. "I am happy to be here, though I wanted to be at IIT Kharagpur," said Mohammad Faisal from Anantnag.

Many students opted for IIT-Gn as their first choice instead of traditional favorites such as IIT Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur and Kharagpur. "It is a new IIT in tandem with the changing times. One has a lot of opportunities here," said Ankit Agrawal, who left IIT Delhi for IIT-Gn.

The faculties conducting the foundation program expressed satisfaction about the new crop of technocrats. "We have been conducting this program every year. We want the children to grow in every field. We have introduced a lot of changes to update the teaching methodology to interest the students," said Srinivas Reddy, assistant professor.

Currently IIT-Gn is running on the campus of Vishwakarma Government engineering college. It will shift to its new campus at Palej in Gandhinagar next year. Over 700 students, including those doing BTech, MTech and PhD courses study at IIT-Gn, which was founded in 2008.

The foundation program will also include a theatre workshop by famous Hollywood actor Brian Brophy and numerous other cultural activities, including movie screenings and visits to heritage sites in the city.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/New-IIT-Gandhinagar-batch-has-only-10-girls/articleshow/21259570.cms

No comments:

Post a Comment