Thursday, March 13, 2008

Our President wants an IIT exclusively for women


Amazing!

President Pratibha Patil has asked the government to set up an Indian Institute of Technology exclusively for girls.

She has also insisted that it be built in Amravati, her former Lok Sabha constituency. Amravati is in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha, which has seen a spate of suicides by debt-ridden farmers.

None of the country’s top institutes of higher education like the IITs or the Indian Institutes of Management caters only to women. Nor is there any central university meant only for women.

Thanks to Yogesh Upadhyaya for the e-mail pointer.

* * *

8 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    CMC Vellore was first for Ladies only

    Lady Harding Medical College is girls only

  2. Anonymous said...

    *sigh*.. when is the SC/STs-only IIM in the Andamans coming?

  3. Anonymous said...

    gender-segregated educational institutions as a rule are not a great idea, but I think it is important not to be dogmatic about this principle. Given that IITs predominantly attract mofussil, non-progressive Indian males who use it as a tool for social mobility, it would be an interesting experiment to see what effect such an institution would have on the imagination of the aspirational classes. In terms of real access, precious little will be achieved but then that is another battle. Evidence institutions such as Morehouse, Spellman, Smith, etc. that have thrived in separate but equal situations and have essentially been refuges for folks that would otherwise not have had the same opportunities.

  4. Anonymous said...

    "mofussil, non-progressive"

    Might be mistaken, but did I not read somewhere in this blog that city-dwellers have an unfair advantage in IIT-JEE with superior coaching etc etc... How did the "mofussil" guys slip in now, that too, in "large" numbers?

    Pratik

  5. Anonymous said...

    she must be joking!

  6. Vivek Malewar said...

    @wanderlust
    loved your comment! :)

  7. abhinav narain said...

    I just don't get it ,
    IIT's have just turned into a commodity
    everyone wants to get it for some one or other .
    Don't they IIT wasn't built in a day , and giving a tag of IIT to any building doesn't make it a top class institute.
    I just wish people like Dr.Kalam were there to make sense of the posts of public interest.
    * I am not against women literacy n all , but i certainly don't want some one's wishes to be made real by government

  8. [NpoWEr] said...

    @wanderlust, perfect.

    What does Pratibha Patil even know about IITs or the reason for their establishment.

    Shame on the President.