Non-engineers in IIMA fresh batch up from 20% to 32%

The premier management B-school of India, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has recorded the highest number of non-engineers finally making to the institute's flagship MBA programme. This year, the institute has recorded nearly 33% non-engineers, which is higher than last five years, even with the increase in batch size.

While in 2016-18, the batch consists of 20% non-engineers that increased to 33% in 2017-19.

Speaking about the same, professor Errol D'Souza, Director, IIMA said, "Diversity in the student population helps in enriching the learning process. We consider surface level diversity that has easily identifiable characteristics such as sex or educational backgrounds to be important. The institute believes such diversity has an impact on the heterogeneity of the deep and enduring attributes such as values, attitudes, opinions, and perspectives of students which enhances their creativity and performance in an organizational context."

Professor Apratim Guha, Outgoing-Chairperson, Admissions, IIMA, explains "Our admissions policy helps us admit students with diverse perspectives to contribute greatly to the discussion-based learning that we employ at IIMA. To have a broader mix of participants without compromising on quality will enrich the academic experience of IIMA students even further."

Interestingly, the flagship postgraduate programme in management also witnessed a steady growth over last few years in female students. This year's batch has 27% women that support last years growth. Professor D'Souza added, "We are conscious about the efficacy of increasing the percentage of women entering our class. The achievements are slow as the goal is to not give extra credits or specify a quota for gender or other diversity attributes in the admissions process. In a discussion-based learning environment, such as ours, diversity of participants' backgrounds and inclusivity at an institutional level contribute significantly to a positive learning environment."

Interestingly, the PGP food and agri-business management programme witnessed more than a double percentage of applicants from diverse backgrounds with 39% of the entering class are from food technology field and 35% are from the field of agriculture.