According to the recently released All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) for the fiscal year 2021-22, more women than men have enrolled in higher education over the last eight years. Women have accounted for 55% of the increase in total enrollment in higher education (91 lakh) since 2014-15. According to the most recent survey report, women account for 48 percent, or 2.07 crore, of the total enrollment of 4.33 crore. Female enrolment increased slightly to 2.01 crore from 1.88 crore in 2019-20. In 2014-15, women accounted for 46% of the total 3.42 crore enrollments.

There has been a continuous increase in the enrollment of women since the year 2014-15, the AISHE report stated. Enrollment of women increased by 18.7 per cent during five years, from 2.01 crore in 2020-21 and from 1.74 crore in 2017-18 to 2.07 crore in 2021-22. The report released said, “The share of female enrollment in the increase in total enrollment (91 lakh) since 2014-15 is 55 per cent. There has been more increase in the enrollment of women as compared to men.”

Overall, this trend points to a narrowing gender gap in higher education. Women have made their mark in the science stream, where they account for 52.1% of the total 57.18 lakh undergraduate, postgraduate, MPhil, and PhD students. Women make up approximately 51% of those enrolled in undergraduate science programmes. In 2020-21, 55.48 lakh students enrolled in Science, with 53.1% of them being women, indicating a slight decline.