Thirty percent of those who appear for the Joint Entrance Examination, the tougher first stage filter through which students pass to qualify for the tougher stage-two filter to enter India’s premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) Does matter. This is the highest ratio ever. This is a welcome development that will not only uplift the status of women in the Indian society but also contribute to the full realization of India’s economic potential as a country with the largest pool of youth in the world.
Only a quarter of India’s women aged 15 and above are employed or looking for work (the figure is 19% in the World Bank database). This shows that the labor force participation rate for women in India is very low. According to the World Bank, this figure is 49% for Brazil and 62% for China. If the bulk of women, about half the population, do not work, then India’s total output will be much less than what could work, man or woman.
There is work, and there is work. It is the jobs in the knowledge sector that not only add value but also determine the future competitiveness of the country. Knowledge work is possible when knowledge is produced. It especially demands researchers in the fields of science and technology. According to United Nations data (UNESCO Institute for Statistics), in 2018, India had 232 researchers per million population, while the figure for China was 1,307. For China, this figure had grown to over 1,500 by 2020.
Clearly, India has to increase the number of researchers, contribute to the advancement of knowledge, and keep the Indian economy competitive against economic and strategic competitors. If half the eligible population, ie half the women, is excluded from serious training in science and technology, it will reduce the country’s ability to produce sufficient numbers of researchers and thus, knowledge, research results.
There are many factors against the enrollment of women in science and technology courses. The societal bias that women are not good at science and math is a major factor. This prevents parents from encouraging daughters to take ‘difficult’ subjects, teachers from encouraging girls to take science courses, and recruiters from hiring women scientists, technologists and technicians.
And this is not an India-specific problem. Space scientist and Yale professor Meg Urie wrote in the Washington Post, based on her experience and that of other women, that women left science not because they were not gifted, but because of “being underappreciated, feeling uncomfortable, and being hindered.” Due to the slow drudgery of coping, India is in a better position. In fact, 43% of students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are girls.
Research organizations in India’s public sector, such as the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), hire and promote women with little or no bias compared to elsewhere. Tessy Thomas, a woman, led the team that developed the Agni V missile at the Defense Research and Development Organisation.
Such role models are important for the youth. According to the World Bank, the population of children in India who are 14 years of age or less is 26% of the total population of India. That makes 364 million children, at an age where stereotypes have not yet solidified to set them on career paths that will reduce their potential for reasons unrelated to underlying potential.
A little less than half of them are girls (thanks to the long-standing traditional preference for sons, and its implications for born and unborn girls, half of them are not girls).
Positive role models will encourage them to make choices in education and careers that realize their abilities and ambitions, rather than conform to societal norms of gender-appropriate roles.
30% of JEE candidates are girls, this is good news, as this improves the chances of a large number of girls getting into India’s premier technology institutes and more and more girls instead of giving up their interest in science and technology are encouraged to move forward.
The first rank girl in JEE exam 2022 was: Sneha Parikh. This is unlikely to encourage more girls to opt for JEE in the coming year. The number of girls registered for JEE is projected to reach 260,000 in 2023 from 250,000 last year, even as the total number registered declines by 6,000.
May these ratios continue to grow to take India and Indian women to newer heights of achievements.
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