Though business schools have been quite vocal in their
demand of better women representation at the top rung of the corporate
hierarchy but little was done. However, things are gathering steam finally as
the lowly figures of female enrolment witness a significant change.
The White House
Initiative
At the initiative of the White house, in the recent past no
less than forty top schools pledged to give their diversity a much needed boost
amidst the prevailing sentiment of inclusiveness.
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| Source: http://goo.gl/YxBplG |
Ever since, the graphs for figures of female enrolment have
witnessed a great surge. The Tuck School of Business in Dartmouth witnessed 42%
of its incoming class of MBA cohorts being women which was an increase of a
healthy 10% from that of the previous year and a record for the institution in
itself. Wharton, Kellogg School and Chicago Booth reported increase in
percentage of the number of female MBA cohorts.
According to Bill Boulding who happens to be the dean at the
Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, solid steps are being taken by MBA
schools to make sure student diversity is an essential part of demographics of
their students.
The Larger Picture
This follows close on the heels of concerns that there was
an absence of diversity in top MBA programs which was an echo of a broader
problem faced by corporate institutions. This led to significant investment by
schools to develop and put into use new strategies to attract female students.
Harvard Business School, for one, launched its Gender
Initiative in May and MIT Sloan School has also jumped on the bandwagon. The
Berkeley-Haas School in California followed suit with their “Gender Equity
Initiative leading to an increase of 50% female students when accounted year-over-year.
This change is not limited to North America alone and has
found echoes in countries like China and UK as well. Take for instance the
Fudan University School of Management in China, 59% of whose students were
female in the MBA class of the previous day. Similarly Imperial College and
Lancaster University Management School had 50% female students as women among
its MBA cohorts. A group of business schools in Australia is also looking
forward towards raising $20 million in order to enroll 320 female cohorts over
a period of three years.
But the problem, as Dr. Shaheena Janjuha-Jivraj who is an
associate professor at Henley Business School, puts it is that a post graduate
program is worth the investment.
The GMAT
This increase in the number of MBA cohorts at top MBA
programs may also be partially be attributed to the increase in the number of
women sitting for the GMAT which is the common entrance test to business
schools.
According to data revealed by the administrator of the test
the GMAC that more women are sitting for
the test than men in several countries among which include China, Finland and
Russia. There was a total of 17,479 more females than males studying for GMAT
in these countries.
But
some academics opine that the recruitment part is only a piece of the larger
jigsaw puzzle where the administrative and academic leadership is dominated by
males and overwhelmingly so.Shared by Management Writing Solutions
