Q. The addition of the seats was just one of a host of measures you took to increase gender diversity. Why did you make that effort at all?
A. If you take out diversity, you run a monolith for 50 years. The IIMs have been around since 1961. First, I looked at the data on gender diversity for the 50 years, the presence of women through CAT scores.
In the top three IIMs (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta), women’s representation was about 8-10 percent. The playing field is skewed against girls. After 20-odd years, the parents’ attention is on boys. They want to send boys to coaching centres. With girls, it is divided between marriage and other things. There isn’t equal emphasis.
These lenses (tests) measure test-taking ability, not managerial ability.
In 2012, we looked at Class 10 and 12 scores as additional inputs. In Class 10, there’s less discrimination. With these scores as factors, girls began to get into the interviews more. I got a lot of flak from my peers.
Q. Why were you criticised?
A. People said I was tampering with meritocracy. But in 2012, the government had also started saying gender diversity is critical and Parliament should have equal representation. The tide of the times saved me although there was opposition from sister institutions and from our women faculty, which was surprising. Girls who had made it earlier found this inappropriate.
Q. Even the women students were unhappy?
A. They thought their hard work to beat the system would be diluted. I was vindicated when we looked at placements for boys and girls in the first year of summer placements and found the ratio had shifted to girls. Out of the first 100 jobs, 60 went to girls. This was indicative of where industry was going.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2019-Ausgabe von Careers 360.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 2019-Ausgabe von Careers 360.
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100 Best Business Schools In The Country
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'Quality management education that is equitable': FMS Dean
The Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) at the University of Delhi (DU) is one of India's premier business schools offering MBA courses at a relatively low cost, compared to most leading business schools in India. Celebrating its 70th year, it is also one of the first university-based business schools. In an interview with Sanjay, head and dean of FMS A Venkat Raman spoke about the functioning of a business school under a central university, challenges, courses and future plans. He also spoke on the Common Admission Test (CAT) and its impact on diversity in student cohorts. Edited excerpts
