Supernumerary seats at IITs boost female representation, but STEM gender gap starts early

The Hindu

a day ago

IITs admit over ten thousand students every year for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Numerous studies and reports show an abysmal gender ratio in this student group. The number of female students at IITs, however, is slowly but steadily improving. Many attribute the increased representation of female students to the Supernumery Seat Scheme (SSS), introduced by the IIT Council in 2018. The scheme made additional seats available for female candidates, rather than using the reservation method.
While the addition of seats has indeed boosted the number of girl students going to IIT, skewed gender ratio at the Olympiads, a platform for students who excel in school-level Science and Mathematics, shows structural problems in gender equity in STEM. Schemes such as Supernumery seats address the gap in one intended area, such as UG for IITs, NITs, but there is a need for sustained effort at the junior level to get more women interested in Maths and Science. A good push at the junior level could be promising for improved female representation in STEM.
Numbers increasing
For the undergraduate programmes at IIT, admissions happen through the JEE examination. More female candidates are appearing and qualifying for the test. The JEE Advanced 2025 results show progress in the area of gender representation, with 9,404 (17.3%) female candidates qualifying, the greatest number since 2017, which was 7,137 (14.1%). Each IIT has its own admission process for many of the postgraduate programmes.
Though the number of test takers may improve, familial and societal expectations that often confine women to traditional gender roles pose as barriers to achieving parity. The authors of Lab Hopping: Women Scientists in India interviewed the director of ISRO's human spaceflight in 2018. During her young days, V. R. Lalithambika, a specialist in advanced launcher technologies, qualified to be a student at IIT Madras; however, pressure from elders to start a family meant staying back and studying at a local college. Nevertheless, she found her way to the top.
Supernumery Seat Scheme
It is for women like V. R. Lalithambika that the committee under the chairmanship of Timothy Gonsalves implemented SSS. Under this, extra seats were added in all the branches, until the percentage of women therein reached 20. Research from the STEMTheGap project shows that, barring IIT Kharagpur, all IITs now comprise 20 per cent female students in their Engineering programs.
Certain rules govern supernumery seats for female allocation at IITs. The qualifying cut-off marks for each program of every IIT are computed in a gender-oblivious manner. Every program has two pools of seats: Gender-Neutral and Female-Only. The Female-Only pool includes supernumerary seats, if any. Female candidates are eligible for both pools. A female candidate, however, first competes for a seat from the Female-Only pool. Only after she fails to get a seat from this pool will she compete for a seat from the Gender-Neutral pool.
These rules of seat allocation ensure that there is no reduction in the number of available seats for non-female candidates compared to the number of available seats. It is also said that the number of seats in the Gender-Neutral pool of an institute (e.g., IIT Kanpur) in 2025 will not be less than the number of seats in the Gender-Neutral pool in that Institute in 2024.
Increased representation of women
An IIT Madras spokesperson shared data with The Hindu, which showed increasing representation of female candidates at undergraduate courses as a result of implementation of supernumery seats. The percentage of female students rose from 16.4 in 2015 to 20.7 in 2025. The UG courses at IIT Madras saw 138 female students in 2015, as compared to 839 male students. In 2025, the number of female candidates rose to 234 and males to 1129. It shows a 4.3% increase in female students in the decade.
This overall increase in representation of women at IITs is reflected in the student statistics posted on the Council of Indian Institute of Technology. The top five IITs (as per NIRF 2024 rankings) show a trend of bringing down the gender gap.
At IIT Kharagpur, female students were slightly above 1500 in 2012. The same year, the institute had a little over 8000 male students. In 2021, the number of female students increased to almost 3000, whereas male students were a little over 11,000. Between 2012 to 2021, the ratio of female students rose from about 18 women per 100 men to 26 women per 100 men. The scheme brought the difference between male and female students at IIT Kharagpur from nearly 70% in 2012 to less than 60% in 2021 -- a closing of at least eleven percentage points in the gap.
Need for inclusion efforts at junior level
Recently, the Indian team for the 2025 International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), to be held in Sochi, Russia, was officially announced. The six-member team includes only one female candidate. The National Standard Examination in Junior Science (NSEJS), which is an annual examination conducted in India aimed at high school students, is the first stage for selection to IJSO. At this first stage, the gender ratio is skewed. Students then go through a few stages of elimination to be selected for the international level.
The enrollment numbers for females in NSEJS lag behind males. The percentage, however, has consistently increased over the years. It went from over 29 percent female enrollment in 2020 to over 42 percent in 2024.
The 17th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA2024), which bagged numerous medals, comprised only male students. The same is the case with the team for the 15th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), which consisted of only male candidates.