The number of women candidates who will join the new batch of the Post-graduate Programme in Management for Executives (PGPX) at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA), is expected to double this year.

"We expect about 10 per cent of the new batch to be women," said Arvind Sahay, the head of PGPX, while addressing mediapersons at the institute. "The last batch consisted of just five per cent women candidates," said Sahay adding this year the institute was targeting a batch size of 80 for its third batch of the one-year full-time residential MBA programme.

"This is a significant achievement because the applicant pool in the age group that comprises the PGPX has fewer women candidates compared to other pools," Sahay said.

The average age of the new batch will be 33 years and the candidates gaining entry into the course will have work experience of about 10 years, he added.

The admission process for the third batch of PGPX is now complete. The institute received 1,352 applications which was an increase of about 60 per cent over the previous year. The placement dates for the second batch of students of this course are in the process of being finalised.

"We are expecting about 70 to 80 campus placements this year as compared to the 54 last year," he said adding the placements are expected to take place between January-February 2008.

He also mentioned that the second batch of PGPX students was proceeding on an international immersion programme, which provides academic inputs and real world learning in an
multicultural setting.

Columbia Business School (USA) and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management (Germany [Images]) are new additions to the list of overseas partners for the international immersion of PGPX students.

The institute also has agreements with University of Texas at Austin and is in talks with Warwick Business School, UK and Cordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria,
South Africa for collaboration in this area.