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• The report of the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) 2021–22, made public recently, found that 4.33 crore students are currently enrolled in an higher educational institute — up from 4.14 crore in 2020-21, and 3.42 crore in 2014-15.

Major Highlights of the report

• Female enrolment greater than male-  The number of women enrolled in higher educational institutes has steadily increased, the AISHE report showed.
• From 1.5 crore women enrolled in 2014-15, there has been a a jump of 32% to 2.07 crores enrolled in 2021-22. In the last five years, the number of women enrolled increased by 18.7%, from 1.74 crore in 2017–18.
• The most astounding rise was seen at the PhD level. In 2021-22, the total PhD enrolment in the country is 2.12 lakh of which 98,636 are women. Eight years ago, only 47,717 women were enrolled in PhD programmes.
• The proportion of women enrolled in higher education, compared to men, has also gone up.
• Of the 91 lakh more students to have joined higher educational institutes in 2021-22 (when compared to 2014-15), 55% were women.
• The proportion of women is highest at the post graduate level, where 55.4% students are female.

GER and Gender Parity-   Gross Enrollment Ratio indicates how many students are part of the higher education system in a given population.

• The estimated GER for the age group 18-23 years in India is 28.4, the AISHE 2021-22 report said (based on population data from the 2011 census).
• In terms of state-wise data, Chandigarh, at 64.8%, boasts of the highest GER, followed by Puducherry at 61.5%, Delhi at 49%, and Tamil Nadu at 47%.
• Another indicator called the Gender Parity Index (GPI) shows the ratio of the female GER to male GER.
• A GPI of 1 indicates parity between the two genders; any number between between 0 and 1 shows a disparity in favour of males, whereas a GPI greater than 1 indicates a disparity in favour of females.
• The survey observed that in 26 states and Union Territories, the GER is in favour of women. At the all-India level, GPI is 1.01, and for SC and ST categories, the GPI is 1.01 and 0.98 respectively.

Arts over the sciences in graduation, PG-  The survey showed that the Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme has the highest enrolment, with 1.13 crore students — 34.2% of total undergraduate enrolment across India. In all, 3.41 crore students are enrolled in UG programmes.

• Among disciplines at undergraduate level, in 2021-22, the enrollment is highest in Arts (34.2%), followed by science (14.8%), commerce (13.3%) and engineering and technology (11.8%). BA(Hons) accounts for 20.4 lakh (6.2%), the survey shows.
• At PhD level, however, social sciences stood at third spot after engineering and science. While 52,748 are pursuing a PhD in engineering, and 45, 324 in science, 26,057 students are pursuing PhD in the social sciences.

Primacy of government institutions-  Interestingly, 73.7% of all students attend government universities, which make up only 58.6% of all universities.

• In the government sector, state public universities have the largest share of enrolment, accounting for around 31% of the total enrolment for universities.
• In actual numbers, government owned universities have an enrolment of 71.06 lakh, whereas enrolment in privately managed universities is 25.32 lakh.

Demographics of students graduating-  During the 2021–22 academic year, 1.07 crore students were estimated to have graduated from undergraduate, graduate, doctorate, master’s, and other diploma/certificate programmes. Among these 1.07 crore students, 54.6 lakh or roughly 50.8% are women.

• Category-wise, in 2021-22, around 35% of the students belong to Other Backward Classes (OBC), 13% are from Scheduled Caste (SC) community and 5.7% of the graduates are from Scheduled Tribe (ST) community.
• At the UG level, BA degree has been awarded to 24.16 lakh — the highest among all programmes. Even at PG level, the number of MA graduates are maximum with 7.02 lakh degrees awarded in 2021-22.
• At PhD level, the highest graduates are in the science stream with 7,408 followed by engineering and technology at 6,270 graduating students.

Source- Indian Express