AHMEDABAD: The incoming batch of Post-Graduate Program (PGP) in management - the flagship program of IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) - has 133 students who are not from IITs or other engineering colleges. In terms of absolute numbers and percentage, 33.5%, it's one of the highest representations of the non-engineering students in the course, said the institute officials.
This is the 59th batch of the course.
To put the figure in perspective, a decade ago in the 2011-13 batch, out of 331 only 17 or 5% of the students had a non-technical background.
The batch's average age has remained around 23 years - the same as the past three years. The representation of women, however, has gone down. Compared to the record 28% in the 2021 batch, the number has fallen to 23%. However, a decade ago, the percentage hovered around 11%.
Prof Errol D'Souza, director of IIM-A, had told TOI in an earlier interview that the institute was working actively to bring in diversity in the batches.
'Diversity in PGP testimony to decade-long process'
IIM-A was serious about bringing diversity to students' disciplines and work and life experience. It's not the entrance exam that gets you into our institute. We have tweaked the admission criteria too... If you are a topper from any university in a particular discipline, say literature or history, we will call you for an interview. If you exhibit curiosity and tenacity required to go through our programme, you will be admitted," Prof Errol D'Souza, director of IIM-A had said.
While he was not available for comment on Wednesday, senior IIM-A professors said that the number is a testimony of the decade-long process. A senior faculty member told TOI that diversity is a double-edged sword when it comes to highly demanding courses such as PGP.
"The process surely favours those with very strong quantitative aptitude. Even when it comes to marketing, it needs statistical analysis, models and projections. It sometimes gets overwhelming for those who are not conversant with the methods," said the faculty. "Thus, we have devised bridge courses and have also suggested a lot of online material for those students to catch up. The new market needs leaders with a multi-faceted approach, and over the years we have seen demand going up for women and non-engineering grads."
Prof Kirti Sharda, chairperson of PGP course, said that over the years, the PGP grads have also ventured into fields such as sports, writing, academics, government and policy, and non-profit ventures to name a few along with being trailblazers in business leadership.
"Back in our days, there were hardly any women and hardly any students who were not from engineering background," said Paresh Vora, an alumnus of 1984 PGP batch and director of WIN Foundation. "Over the years, we have seen more curiosity towards the course and better participation. Diversity helps in classroom discussions in case study methods - when it's important to have different points of views to solve a problem. I would surely love to see more non-engineers and women and all sorts of diversity in the future," said Vora, who is an engineer by education.
