Yes, JEE! IITs are closing the gender gap, but there’s still a long road ahead

IITs continue to remain at the centre of the middle-class dream of pride and prosperity. But for many years, female students were left on the margins of this aspiration. While the 2025 results underline the continued dominance of males in engineering (82.7% of the total qualifying students in 2025), the record pass percentage of girls this year shows that a lot has changed since 2018 when IITs introduced an affirmative action scheme by adding extra seats for girls.

Seven years ago, the situation was dire with women constituting a shockingly low 8% in the BTech degree, a number that had stayed stagnant over the nearly 60+ years of the existence of first-generation IITs. Nobody found anything odd about this since engineering was coded ‘male’ until Prof Timothy Gonsalves, former director of IIT Mandi, took matters in hand and piloted the scheme known as the ‘Supernumerary Seats Scheme’ (SSS). The evidence to convince the IITs Council that the scheme was necessary and would not lead to a “dilution” in the quality of students, came from two sources: JEE data showing that many women who qualified did not join IITs for varying reasons such as getting admission to ‘male’ branches like civil and mechanical, and parental concerns about safety and distance from home. Girls had little choice in their admission, as we found out in the first open house held in 2018 at IIT Delhi for JEE Advanced qualified girls and their parents. The second source was a 2016 IIT Delhi study that showed that irrespective of the JEE rank they entered with, female students outperformed their male peers.

It is intriguing that only the IITs have been plagued by the extremely low percentage of female students in engineering; the national average is around 30%. Southern states had already initiated a 33% reservation for girls in the 2000s. So, ironically, it’s the so-called Institutes of National Importance (INIs), the IITs, that barred women from their portals, reifying the image of elite engineering as a male preserve, in the process depriving not only STEM of diverse perspectives on research and innovation but also women of stellar role models and networks that the IITs generate. Female faculty numbers in these institutions also remain low – a story for another time.

The SSS scheme has been successful on several fronts. It has met its stated target of raising the percentage of girls to 20% by 2020, which improved to 22% in 2024. There are important wins to be noted here. A perusal of JEE data shows that the number of women appearing for JEE Advanced has risen by 33% between 2018 and 2025. More critical indicators of the scheme’s success are the percentages of those who qualify and those who get a seat allotted. Prior to SSS, females represented 12% of all (males and females) who qualified and 9% of those who were allotted seats. Post-SSS, the percentage of women allotted seats had more than doubled to 19.8 % in 2024. The rate of growth of seats allotted increased from -1.4 % per year between 2011-17 to 4.1 % between 2018-24.

The rising percentage of women allotted seats since 2018 is a function of the extra seats as well as girls being able to meet their preferred choices of institute and department, resulting in rising acceptance rates. This stemmed the drift away to an NIT or an engineering college near home. Further good news, as recent work by STEMtheGap, a research project housed at IIT Delhi, shows, is that even if some supernumerary girls enter IITs at somewhat lower JEE scores and ranks, they catch up with their male peers and perform similarly while exiting the program.

How successful has the scheme been in opening the doors to engineering as an educational and career choice for young women? Our qualitative studies with girls who entered IIT Delhi post-SSS show that families across caste categories are factoring in women’s higher chances of getting into an IIT, as are schoolteachers and coaching centres. The additional girls have changed the feel of IIT campuses, resulting in a more welcoming environment and less isolation. Since the scheme also ensures that every department reaches 20% representation, it prevents the bias caused by the clustering of women in ‘lower-ranked’ departments. The scheme also follows mandated caste reservations, thereby addressing gender imbalances within caste categories. The scheme has thus increased both gender and caste diversity in IITs, apart from breaking disciplinary stereotypes within engineering.

To further increase the female pipeline for IITs, it is important to initiate measures that address deep-rooted biases about girls’ and women’s inherent STEM abilities and remove structural barriers built into entrance exams; such steps can help reshape the environment for inclusion. Further, initiatives like open houses and mentorship programs, which bring schoolgirls to IIT campuses for an immersive experience, are also key to changing the mindset that women are unsuited to engineering.

Kaur is professor, IIT Delhi and co-lead on STEMtheGap research project

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