Bengaluru's NMKRV college drops ‘for women’ tag, goes co-ed to boost admissions

BENGALURU: NMKRV College for Women is now NMKRV College. A year after Mount Carmel College started accepting boys for its undergraduate programmes, the Jayanagar college is the latest to become a co-ed institution from 2025-26.In the first year, the legacy college will have 10% of its student strength reserved for boys. The college has already enrolled 60 boys for its programmes, with applications overshooting the quota for this year. The number of seats for boys will increase in the coming years."Some courses did not have encouraging admission numbers. One of the reasons (for going co-ed) was the declining popularity of women's colleges.

Youngsters prefer co-ed colleges. That is when we decided to open up," said Snehalatha G Nadiger, principal.

The college has 2,000 students in 14 programmes. "We've renamed the college 'NMKRV College' after securing approvals from Bangalore University and the higher education department to become co-ed. We used to spread the word locally about our change, and now we are going full on, including revamping our website," she said.

"We are changing with the times," said MP Shyam, president, Rashtreeya Sikshana Samithi Trust, that manages Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Institutions. The number of girls-only institutions is decreasing. We changed NMKRV Junior College into co-ed (in 2018) and it was well accepted. We decided we should do that with the degree college as well," he said.NMKRV College for Women was founded in 1973 by Meda Kasturiranga Setty and Nagarathnamma Meda Kasturiranga Setty, driven by the belief that educating a girl child is educating an entire family.

With a strong local flavour, it has been a landmark in the educational landscape of Bengaluru. The college was one of the first to start a department of women's studies, now shut."The motto of the founder was to educate girls at a time when it was difficult for parents to send them for co-education or to a boys' school. There were no other girls' colleges in this part of Bengaluru," said Shilpa P, an alumna and now a faculty member.