In the last eight years, more women than males have enrolled in higher education: The AISHE Report

In the previous eight years, more women than males have enrolled in higher education, according to the newly published All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) for the year 2021–2022. 55% of the 91 lakh more students who have enrolled in higher education since 2014–15 are women. As to the most recent survey data, women make up 2.07 crore, or 48%, of the 4.33 crore total enrolled. Female enrollment increased slightly from 1.88 crore in 2019–20 to 2.01 crore. 46 percent of the 3.42 crore enrolments in 2014–15 were made up of women.

According to the AISHE data, female enrollment has been steadily rising since 2014–2015. Over a five-year period, female enrollment rose by 18.7%, from 2.01 crore in 2020–21 to 2.07 crore in 2021–22, and from 1.74 crore in 2017–18 to 2.01 crore in 2020–21. According to the data, female enrollment has increased by 55% during 2014–15, accounting for 91 lakh new enrollments overall. The number of women enrolled has increased more than that of males.

In general, this pattern suggests that the gender divide in higher education is closing. Women have achieved notable success in the scientific stream, accounting for 52.1% of the 57.18 lakh students enrolled at the undergraduate, postgraduate, MPhil, and PhD levels. Women make up around 51% of the undergraduate students enrolled in the scientific stream. A modest reduction was seen in the number of female students admitted to Science programs in 2020–21, accounting for 53.1% of the total 55.48 lakh students.

Sixty-one percent of the seventy-two thousand PG students studying science are female. Sixty-two percent of the 45,324 students enrolling in PhD programs in the sciences are women, while just thirty-nine percent are males. According to the most recent AISHE study, the number of women enrolled in PhD programs increased by 10.4% year between 2014–15 and 2021–2022. Nonetheless, it is evident how engineering and technology fields vary from one another. Of all students enrolled in undergraduate programs, there are only 11.3 lakh women and 27.6 lakh men in total.