<span style="color: #222222;">President Ram Nath Kovind today said girls often outscore boys in board examinations, colleges and universities, but their number is "distressingly low" in the IITs and this has to increase. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Delivering the 64th convocation address of IIT Kharagpur, he said, in  2017, of the 1,60,000 candidates who appeared for the IIT joint entrance examination, only 30,000 were girls. Of the 10,878 students who had been admitted to under graduate classes of the IITs in the same year, only 995 were girls.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Mr Kovind said, this cannot go on, we need to do something about these numbers.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He said when one considers board exams, girls do very well and often outscore boys. But in the IITs, the intake of girl students is distressingly low.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">An estimated 2,616 students were awarded degrees, including 295 doctoral and joint PhD at the convocation. Seven students also received gold medals for their academic excellence and all-round performance.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Earlier, President unveiled a plaque of a girls' hostel and a visitors' guest house named after former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.</span><br />''  <br />