Last week, the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) announced that its 29th PGP batch (academic year 2025-27) has admitted more than 50% female students – of the 489 students, 268 are women.
“This batch has 55% women, against a national CAT 2024 applicant pool of only 36% women,” Prof Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM Kozhikode, told FE.
This marks the fourth time that IIMK has admitted more women than men – it earlier did in 2013-15, 2020-22, and 2024-26.
But this new gender balance happened neither by accident, nor by design. Prof Chatterjee said that IIMK has worked on making MBA more attractive for females.
Initial batches
In its inaugural batch (1997-99), IIMK had just one female student in a class of 42, and in the following 15 years, the percentage of female students reflected the industry trend – from single digits to 20-30% in certain years. In the 2013-15 batch, however, IIMK for the first time admitted more women than men – 196 women as compared to 169 men, in a class of 365.
Their percentage dropped in the following years, but starting 2020-22, IIMK has been attracting more than 40% female students consistently – it touched a high of 58.6% in the 2024-26 batch.
Steps taken since 2012-13
Prof Chatterjee said that IIMK started taking steps to solve the gender diversity challenge more than a decade ago. “Those days, corporates were looking to hire more women at entry-level positions, but there weren’t enough female students in Indian B-schools,” he said. “We took steps to increase their participation, including organising ‘women in leadership programmes’ since 2012-13. Looking at us, other B-schools also started their own initiatives. The result is that from about 10% female student participation across IIMs over a decade ago, today more than 30% students graduating from the IIM system are females. We didn’t do any magic, just organised a few programmes and lectures, inspiring women.”
Some training programmes have also inspired women to come forward in the field of management. For instance, the School Leaders Programme of IIMK is popular in the region – it trains school principals for leadership roles, and indirectly supports women in management.
“Diversity is not a statistic for us – it is a strategic imperative. We are shaping future leaders who will thrive in a complex, pluralistic world,” Prof Chatterjee said.
Female students at other IIMs
While historically male-dominated, recent years have seen remarkable shifts at some IIMs. For example, IIM Visakhapatnam admitted 51% female students in the 2025-27 batch, and IIM Sambalpur admitted 76% women in the 2024-26 batch.
But at the oldest IIMs, the percentage of female students is still low – the 2025-27 PGP batch of IIM Ahmedabad has 30% female students, and last year’s PGP batch of IIM Bangalore had 40% female students.