More women join IIM Lucknow this year, 3.4% up from 2016

An official said they were happy that to some extent the institute had been successful in ensuring a diverse mix of students, but a lot more had to be done to create an ideal diverse environment

Lucknow: The new postgraduate programme batch at Lucknow’s Indian Institute of Management (2017-19) has more women than previous years. Some 30.4% students (156) out of the batch of 451 this year, are women as compared to 27% last year.

Induction programme at IIM Lucknow. (Sourced)

The batch of 2013-2015 had 38% female candidates, an official said.

IIM believes this will ensure diversity without compromising on merit. “This is a good sign. More participation of women students brings diversity and adds different perspective as well,” said IIM Lucknow director Ajit Prasad while talking to HT.

IIM-L said that the institute was looking at having a class with a broad base in terms of diversity – gender wise, background wise and also in terms of prior work experience. An official said they were happy that to some extent the institute had been successful in this objective, but there were still many steps to be taken to create an ideal diverse environment.

The average work experience of the newly induced batch has also risen from 11.3 months to 16.6 months, with 74% of the new batch having some work experience.

IIM-Lucknow recently concluded the induction programme for its incoming batch of postgraduate students in management and agri- business management.

Over the last two days, the eager crowd of over 450 students was addressed by the guest of honour, Niraj Seth, executive vice- president, naukri.com (formerly chief marketing officer Intuit and Cleartrip); and noted IIM Lucknow alumnus Lakshmi Narayan, chief endowment officer, Azim Premji Foundation.