More women enrolled in higher studies than men in 8 years: AISHE report

“The share of women enrolment is 55% of the increase in overall enrolment (91 lakh) since 2014-15. There has been a higher increase in women enrolment as compared to men,” the report observed.

Overall, the trend indicates a closing gender gap in higher education. Among the areas where women made a mark, is the science stream, in which of the total 57.18 lakh students enrolled at the undergraduate, postgraduate, MPhil, and PhD levels, 52.1% are women.

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At the undergraduate level, about 51% of the total enrolled are women in the science stream. In 2020-21, 55.48 lakh students were enrolled in science, of which 53.1% were women, showing a slight dip.

At the PG level in science, women make up 61.2% of the 7.52 lakh students enrolled. Over half of the 45,324 students enrolled in PhD programmes 62% in the science discipline are women compared to only 39% men. The annual increase in women PhD enrolment from 2014-15 to 2021-22 is 10.4%, the latest AISHE survey revealed.

The gap, however, is stark in the engineering and technology discipline. Among the total enrolled students, only 11.3 lakh are women and 27.6 lakh are men in the undergraduate programmes.