According to figures from the World MBA Tour, the largest international programme of business school information events, women around the world are increasingly turning to an MBA as a route to top jobs in industry, commerce and banking. Of over 58,000 prospective students who attended World MBA Tour events in 2005, 35 pc were women – up from 34 pc in 2004 and only 28 pc in 2003. In India however, women are lagging well behind their overseas counterparts. At Indian events only 19 pc of applicants were female – the fourth lowest percentage across more than 30 countries – although this was an increase on 2004 when the percentage was only 16 pc.
The global figures are mirrored by the experience of major international schools such as Manchester in the UK, which saw applications for women for places on its full-time programme rise from 23 pc to 35 pc in 2005. The trend is part of a concerted effort on the part of business schools to redress the historic bias in favour of men on campus. “There are fewer than 30 pc women at most business schools around the world compared to around 50 pc in other professional schools such as law or medicine,” says Kim Keating of the Tuck School in the USA. “We’ve been working very hard to reach out to women through creative activities.”
Those Indian women who have followed their international counterparts into business school education are almost uniformly enthusiastic about the experience. According to Shazia Ghadialy, who is currently studying for an MBA at the Cass Business School in the UK, “Things have improved for women over the last 20 years, but I think we still need to identify ways to combine having a family with having a leadership role at work. An MBA certainly helps to portray the image that you are serious about your career, and it consequently does equip you to break the glass ceiling.” Her opinion is largely shared by Shipra Kochhar, currently on the MBA programme at HHL in Leipzig, Germany: “There’s definitely a glass ceiling which prevents Indian women from reaching senior management positions,” she says, “however, I think that the experience at a top international school better equips you to face the challenges of the corporate world.”
Source: www.TopMBA.com