Times of India; Friday, July 22, 2011,
AHMEDABAD: Too many questions on the admission process asked under the Right to Information Act may have led the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), to enroll more students with engineering background in recent years.
The institute, which tried to maintain diversity in student profile by enrolling students from various academic backgrounds a few years ago, does not have the liberty to tweak its admission process now.
Out of a batch of 372 students for the academic year 2011-13, 94.62 percent are engineers. The institute had 95 percent engineering students in its batch of 2010-12 and 91 percent in 2009-11.
Samir Barua, the IIM-A director, told mediapersons on Thursday: "Before RTI came into existence, we used to change the admission process a bit to bring diversity in student profile. During those days, the strength of engineering students was only around 45-50 percent. However, at present we have to strictly follow a fixed admission process, which may have led to an increasing number of engineering students. Though we wish to have a diverse profile, we are bound by the process."
In the fixed admission process, students with an engineering background usually have an advantage at the common admission test (CAT) due to the importance given to mathematics.
IIM-A received around 15 RTI applications last year. Most of the RTIs were related to admissions, forcing it to reveal its eligibility criteria. This year since January, the institute received around four RTI applications related to admissions.
This year, the batch consists of 72.58 percent students with work experience of 25 months as compared to just 50 percent last year.
The institute, which tried to maintain diversity in student profile by enrolling students from various academic backgrounds a few years ago, does not have the liberty to tweak its admission process now.
Out of a batch of 372 students for the academic year 2011-13, 94.62 percent are engineers. The institute had 95 percent engineering students in its batch of 2010-12 and 91 percent in 2009-11.
Samir Barua, the IIM-A director, told mediapersons on Thursday: "Before RTI came into existence, we used to change the admission process a bit to bring diversity in student profile. During those days, the strength of engineering students was only around 45-50 percent. However, at present we have to strictly follow a fixed admission process, which may have led to an increasing number of engineering students. Though we wish to have a diverse profile, we are bound by the process."
In the fixed admission process, students with an engineering background usually have an advantage at the common admission test (CAT) due to the importance given to mathematics.
IIM-A received around 15 RTI applications last year. Most of the RTIs were related to admissions, forcing it to reveal its eligibility criteria. This year since January, the institute received around four RTI applications related to admissions.
This year, the batch consists of 72.58 percent students with work experience of 25 months as compared to just 50 percent last year.
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