Institutes of National Importance have Lowest Female Enrolment: AISHE Report

The institutes of national importance have the lowest female enrolment, reveals the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-2020 report. The share of female students in Institutes of National Importance stands at 24.7 per cent which is the lowest among all the 11 types of institutes in India. INIs are followed by deemed universities with 33.4 per cent women and state private universities at 34.7 per cent, reveals the report.

Though Gender Parity Index (GPI) in Higher Education in 2019-20 has recorded a slight increase, up from 1 in 2018-19 to 1.01 in 2019-20, female enrolment is still lower than that of males across most Indian institutes.

The number of female students is lowest for institutes under state private open university (2499) followed by Institutes under State Legislature Act (3702) whereas the share is highest in State Public Universities, states the report.

IIT-Delhi director said, “Many girls qualified in IITs but their parents were not ready to send them to areas too far from home. There were geographical reasons for them to drop out from these institutes and instead take admission in a local college. We had also done a survey that showed that if girls get good ranks and their parents don’t consider distance as a problem then their participation would have been 20 per cent. In IITs girls outperform boys.”

In IIT Delhi there are 15 per cent female students in undergraduate courses. The government had announced a supernumerary quota for female students which led to an increase in female enrolment.

The share of female students for Institutes under the State Legislative Act is 61.2 per cent; in State Public Universities it is 50.1 per ent and in Central Universities, it is 48.1 per cent, according to AISHE data. There are 11 types of Universities and the level-wise enrolment in each type of university, teaching departments, and constituent universities/off-campus centers is in the report.

The number of institutes of National Importance has increased from 75 in 2015 to 135 in 2020. Deemed Universities across India have gone up from 32 in 2015 to 36 in 2019-2020. In past one year, there has been an increase from 127 institutes of national importance to 135 (2019-2020). And for the Deemed Universities, it has increased from 34 to 36 in one academic year.

The total number of students enrolled is 81.38 lakhs with the number of UG students forming the largest part (1397527) in State Public Universities followed by State Open Universities (922944). The number of universities and similar institutions listed on AISHE portal has increased from 799 in 2015-16 to 1043 in 2019-20 by almost 30.5%. The number of colleges has increased from 39,071 in 2015-16 to 42,343 in 2019-20 by about 8.4% on the other hand.

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