Director at EDI Gandhinagar believes cultural and social factors play a role in the situation.
While India may be home to several successful women entrepreneurs, not many among the fair sex are keen on studying entrepreneurship.
If data released by Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) Gandhinagar are anything to go by, girls comprise 19% to 22% of students in the institute's post-graduate programme (PGP).
The course, which started as a one-year programme in 1998, has seen an average 22% girl population in 14 years of its existence.
The ratio marginally improved to 19% to 27% after PGP became a two-year course after AICTE recognition in 2008. The 2007-08 batch of the PGP course had only 12 girls in a class of 70 students. Their number increased to 20 out of 76 students in 2008-10, only to fall to 15 out of 73 in 2009-10. The 2010-12 batch had a mere eight girls among 65 students while the ongoing 2011-13 batch of 99 students has 15 of the fairer sex.
Dr Dinesh Awasthi, director at EDI Gandhinagar, accepts that participation of women in the PGP programme is indeed low. "Women comprise more than 50% of students at our centres in Vietnam and Laos but in India, this figure is quite low," said Dr Awasthi. He believes cultural and social factors play a role in the situation.
"In India, it is the son who is expected to carry forward the family business or start his own firm. Daughters are rarely seen as torchbearers though I have come across exceptions where a girl has taken over mantle of her family's business and run it successfully," said Dr Awasthi.
Shruti Rampam, an ex-student and topper of her batch, believes that far too many personal commitments is reason for fewer girls at EDI Gandhinagar. "My mother had her own enterprise and I too wanted one of my own," said Rampam.
"Perhaps it is easier for those who come from business families. Gender issue never crossed my mind when I chose my career," she added.
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