Women power higher education growth as female GER widens lead over men
NEW DELHI: The strongest story in India’s higher education data is no longer just rising enrolment. It is who is driving that rise. The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023-24 report, released by the education ministry on Wednesday, shows women consolidating their lead over men on access, with female GER rising to 31.2% against male GER of 28.9%. Gross Enrolment Ratio, or GER, measures enrolment in higher education as a percentage of the eligible 18-23 age-group population.Across three years, the shift is striking. Female GER moved from 28.5% in 2021-22 to 30.2% in 2022-23 and 31.2% in 2023-24. Male GER rose from 28.3% to 28.9% and then stayed at 28.9%. The female advantage, therefore, widened from 0.2 percentage point in 2021-22 to 1.3 percentage points in 2022-23 and 2.3 percentage points in 2023-24.AISHE 2023-24 records that “Female GER continues to be more than male GER for the seventh consecutive year.” The all-India Gender Parity Index also rose from 1.01 in 2021-22 to 1.04 in 2022-23 and 1.08 in 2023-24, confirming that this is not a one-year fluctuation.Women now account for 2.24 crore of the total 4.50 crore students in higher education — 49.7% of the system. In absolute terms, female enrolment has risen from 2.07 crore in 2021-22 to 2.18 crore in 2022-23 and 2.24 crore in 2023-24, adding nearly 17 lakh women in two years. By comparison, total enrolment rose by about 17 lakh over the same period, meaning women contributed almost the entire net expansion.Their presence is stronger at higher levels of study. Women constitute 56.2% of postgraduate enrolment, indicating that they are not merely entering higher education but also staying on beyond the undergraduate level. They also account for 50.3% of SC enrolment, 52.3% of ST enrolment and 49.9% of OBC enrolment.The intersectional gains are significant. SC female enrolment rose from about 31.7 lakh in 2021-22 to 33.9 lakh in 2022-23 and 35.1 lakh in 2023-24. ST female enrolment increased from 13.46 lakh to 14.67 lakh and then 15.08 lakh, while OBC female enrolment climbed from 78.19 lakh to 85.32 lakh and 90.05 lakh. In percentage terms, that is a two-year rise of around 10.7% for SC women, 12.0% for ST women and 15.2% for OBC women.The regional spread is equally important. In 2023-24, female enrolment exceeded male enrolment in Bihar, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Uttarakhand. Bihar reported 14.0 lakh women against 13.6 lakh men, West Bengal 12.5 lakh against 12.0 lakh, Telangana 9.1 lakh against 8.7 lakh, and Kerala 7.4 lakh against 5.4 lakh. In the North East, female enrolment stood at 7.0 lakh against male enrolment of 6.2 lakh.But the success story has a caveat. Women are doing better in access, postgraduate education, science, education and medical science, but not yet in core technical streams. In undergraduate Engineering and Technology, women were only 31.1% of enrolment in 2023-24, up marginally from 30.1% in 2022-23. The access gap has flipped in favour of women; the tech gap has not.
