MUMBAI: India’s higher education lacks women academic leaders, according to a survey of 810 institutions that include the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. Only 54 out of 810 such places of learning, including central, state, deemed varsities and institutes of national importance, have women at the helm. That 6.67% compares poorly with the US (18%), Australia (21%) and the UK (17%). The findings of a report on gender diversity in Indian higher education by strategic management consulting firm EduShine Advisory Group show that much needs to be done to fix this imbalance. Consider this: not a single Indian Institute of Technology or Indian Institute of Management has a woman director. Across all seven All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), 31 National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and six Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs), there is just one woman director at NIT-Puducherry. Overall, institutes of national importance that include IITs, NITs, IISERs and AIIMS, among others, have only 5.47% representation — four out of 73 — at the director level. Of all the higher education institutes surveyed, state private universities have the lowest representation of female academic leadership at eight out of 222 (3.6%). Nine out of 126 (7.14%) deemed universities have a woman leader at the helm while in the case of state universities, it’s 28 out of 325 (8.61%). Central universities have the highest female participation in top jobs, with 9.8% institutions (5 out of 51), headed by women. “There is still an inherent bias against women in society. Moreover, the talent pool one can draw from is small,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman of Biocon, and the only woman to become chairperson of the board of governors at an IIM (IIM-Bangalore). “Compounding this is the problem that many women are still accepting of being in a secondary role. They need to be more pushy.” ‘FEW WOMEN APPLY’ According to Mazumdar-Shaw, few women apply for the job of director at IITs and IIMs. This, she said, creates a ripple effect. “There needs to be a concentrated approach to encouraging women in leadership roles. We need to get rid of stereotypes,” she said. Kalpesh Banker, managing partner of EduShine, agreed that a bias exists, even though the representation of women at overall faculty levels is not quite as poor. At the entry level of higher education, such as assistant professors, lecturers, etc, 38.5% are women, while at the professor level, it is about 25.4%. At the topmost level, this dwindles to 6.67%. Even at the student level, there has been an exponential growth in the number of women enrolled in higher education over the past few decades. According to the University Grants Commission Annual Report for 2013-14, the number of women students enrolled per 100 men at all levels was 79.87. Women’s enrolment, which was less than 10% of the total on the eve of Independence, rose to 44.4% in the 2013-14 academic year. This means that 44% of students enrolled in various courses at all levels in universities/colleges and other institutions of higher education are women. This hasn’t filtered through to academic leadership. Increasing female enrolment in higher education will start showing results in the next decade and more, said Narayanan Ramaswamy, head, education and skill development, KPMG in India. “The pool of available talent is still not enough. But it is good that institutions are not going overboard and making mistakes simply to correct the skewed ratio. Those who are coming up are doing so purely on merit,” he said. He’s optimistic about change taking place over time: “In a few decades, we will be in a better position than many western countries.”