Higher education survey: PhD enrolments in state up by over 8,500 in last 5 years, says study

According to the report, In Maharashtra, the number of men enrolling in PhD courses was higher than women. In 2021-22, men made up 10,115 enrollments while women constituted 7,717. In 2020-21, of the total 15,751 candidates in the state, 9,358 were men while 6,393 were women.

When it came to enrolments to postgraduate (PG) courses in Maharashtra, girls outnumbered boys consecutively for the past five years. What started with a marginal difference in 2017-18 – when out of 4,45,783 candidates enrolled in PG courses in Maharashtra, 2,31,353 were girls and 2,14,430 were boys – has shown a significant outnumbering in five years. In 2021-22, more than half of the 5,87,198 candidates enrolled in PG courses in Maharashtra were girls who numbered 3,03,894.

The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education institutions in Maharashtra has seen a steady growth in the past five years from 31.4 per cent in 2017-18 to 35.30 per cent in 2021-22. A total of 45,77,843 candidates were enrolled in various higher education courses in Maharashtra in 2021-22, with the highest enrolments at the undergraduate level with 34,98,728 candidates where boys had a bigger share numbering at 19,68,964.

While the private sector held the highest number of enrolments, the AISHE 2021-22 report showed a constant increase in the number of private universities in Maharashtra. From only four private universities in 2017-18, this number rose to 21 in 2021-22. Universities in categories such as central, government and public remain as it was in the last five years.

With 45.78 lakh students enrolled to various higher education courses, Maharashtra is among the top six states in terms of student enrolments, following Uttar Pradesh (UP) which had a student enrolment of 69.73 lakh. Even in number of colleges, Maharashtra ranked second with 4,692 colleges, after UP which has 8,375 colleges. But when it came to contribution in teachers, Maharashtra ranked third with its share of 10.5 per cent of 15,97,688 teachers teaching in various higher education institutions across India. Tamil Nadu has the biggest share with 13.1 per cent followed by UP with 11.2 per cent.

With 4,856 foreign students’ enrolments, Maharashtra is third after Karnataka (6004) and Punjab (5971).