In a shift from the long standing trend of engineers dominating the MBA programme at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), non-engineers constitute 33 per cent of the batch this year.

Though there has been an increase of only one per cent from 2017-19 batch, this is the highest percentage of non-engineers in the last five years, despite an increase in the batch size. From 20 per cent in the 2016-18 batch, the quantum increased to 32 per cent in the 2017-19 batch.

In a statement issued Monday, IIM-A director, Professor Errol D’Souza said, “Diversity in the student population helps in enriching the learning process. We consider surface level diversity, with easily identifiable characteristics such as sex or educational backgrounds, important.”

Meanwhile, the post-graduate Food and Agri-Business Management programme (PGP FABM) has registered an increase from 9 to 39 per cent in the number of students from the food technology background. However, the number of women students in the programme, 27 per cent, has dropped by a per cent, after a steady growth in numbers for four years.