How Diversity And Inclusion Are Ensured In B Schools

Indian business schools play the role of catalyst in creating leaders of tomorrow. Organisations across the globe have started focusing on diversity in business leadership. Gender Diversity refers to the extent to which a person's gender identity, role, or expression differs from the cultural norms prescribed for people of a particular sex. Gender diversity is also the equitable or fair representation of people of different genders. It most commonly refers to an equitable ratio of men and women, but may also include people of non-binary genders.

Many organisations are giving more importance to diversity and inclusion and believe that diversity and inclusion are critical for overall, long-term business success. Diverse leadership leads to better awareness of consumers and employees, creates more positive and creative work cultures, and contributes to employee retention. By ensuring gender diversity in a team, one can increase the creativity and innovation potential of the team. Also, it helps any organization to challenge gender stereotypes, which can, in turn, promote the corporate brand as ‘gender-inclusive. Given these realities, diversity in management programs across Indian Business Schools is crucial for companies who hire talent for them.

Achieving gender diversity in management programmes and in B Schools across India is certainly a challenge. Students who aspire to pursue management education in India attempt national-level management entrance examinations like CAT (Common Aptitude Test), SNAP (Symbiosis National Aptitude Test), XAT (Xavier Aptitude Test) etc. The number of female aspirants who attempt such exams is between 30 per cent to 35 per cent. This itself makes the chances for bringing diversity in an MBA classroom a very big challenge.  

So how are diversity and inclusion ensured in Indian B Schools? Here are a few ways by which Indian B Schools are trying their best to bring diversity and inclusion to the classroom

Seats reserved for International Students

Several B Schools have seats reserved for students outside India. This is being done to ensure that students with diverse backgrounds are in the class and hence bring diversity into the classroom.

Scholarship for meritorious girl students

Some B Schools have scholarships for meritorious girl students to encourage and bring diversity in the class. Such scholarships help in attracting and encouraging talented girl students to pursue management programs.

Special provisions for married women.

In order to encourage more women to come back to education post-marriage and childbirth, many Indian B-Schools are providing housing facilities and creche facilities. Female aspirants are allowed to join the program and stay on campus with their family and this trend is fast catching up.

A special place for female students  

Once students are at business school, females sometimes face challenges that their male peers may not. Because of this, premier B schools in India and also across the globe give female students supportive spaces. These special spaces (virtual and real) which are created specifically for women are utilised by them to talk about things that impact them. It also helps in bringing diversity and comfort in dealing with realities.

Giving Diversity its due weightage during the admissions process

A few IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) give weightage to the background of a student and their holistic profile. This can be called the ‘diversity profile score’ of the student. A few IIMS also have a criterion called gender diversity factor, where we give extra marks to female candidates. This is done during the admissions process and has helped them to attract more females, non-engineers and students with diverse academic backgrounds.

Although several measures are being taken by Indian B Schools, the ratio of female students to male students is still not satisfactory. Also, the number of aspirants who pursue their management program – who have their origin outside the country - is also abysmal. Hence, it’s still a long way to go for any Indian B School to have an equitable or fair representation of people of different genders, race and religion.

Dr Ramakrishnan Raman

Guest Author The author is Professor and Director, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune. His passion is working and interacting with the future corporate leaders.