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In a sign of progress, female enrolment in higher education institutions has increased by 18% in five years from 2015-16 to 2019-20. The new data was revealed on Thursday in the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-20. Women continue to be in higher numbers as compared to their male counterparts in medical sciences, B.A, B.Sc., M.Phil., postgraduate and certificate programs. However, in the professional and technical courses, their numbers are much lower.
The survey estimated the Gross Enrolment Ratio for females at 27.3% which is higher than that of males (26.9%). Student enrolment increased at a rate of 11.4% in the country between the academic years 2015-16 and 2019-20. However, the growth of female enrolment stood at 18.2% in the same period.
“The Gender Parity Index (GPI) in higher education in 2019-20 is 1.01 against 1.00 in 2018-19, indicating an improvement in the relative access to higher education for females of the eligible age group compared to males,” the survey noted.
Female participation has increased sharply at the masters level in all three streams- arts, commerce and science. However, the share of female students continues to be low at the undergraduate level in BCA, BBA, B.Tech and LLB.
Courses like B.Sc. honours, MBA, B.Tech and BE continue to remain dominated by men with males forming 54.8%, 57.4%, 71.5% and 71% of total students, respectively. On the other hand, females outnumber males in MBBS (62.2% females), BA (52.9% females) and B.Sc. (52.3% females).
Looking at the overall picture, male enrolment is higher as compared to female enrolment in most states of the country. Some exceptions include the states of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka where overall female enrolment stood at 50.9% and 50.2%.