Enrolment in higher education reached 43.3 million in 2021-22: Report

The enrolment of students in higher education reached nearly 4.33 crore in 2021-22, a hike of 26.5 per cent since 2014-2015, as per the survey conducted by the Education Ministry.

As per the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) released on Thursday, 341 universities and university-level institutions have been established since 2014-15.

The survey also showed that the gross enrolment ratio (GER) has increased to 28.4 in 2021-22 from 23.7 in 2014-15. Female GER has increased to 28.5 in 2021-22 from 22.9 in 2014-15, the survey showed.

The Ministry of Education, Government of India released the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2021-2022 on Thursday. The Ministry has been conducting AISHE since 2011, covering all Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the country registered with AISHE collecting detailed information on different parameters such as student enrolment, teachers, infrastructural information.

"The total enrolment in higher education has increased to nearly 4.33 crore in 2021-22 from 4.14 crore in 2020-21. There has been an increase of around 91lakh in the enrolment from 3.42 crore (26.5%) in 2014-15," the ministry said in a statement quoting the survey.

As per the survey, female enrolment in higher education has surged to 2.07 crore in 2021-22 from 1.57 crore in 2014-15.

Meanwhile, 66.23 lakh SC students category enrolled in 2021-22 as compared to 46.07 lakh in 2014-15 (an increase of 44 percent). At the same time, the enrolment of SC female students has increased to 31.71 lakh in 2021-22 from 29.01 lakh in 2020-21 and 21.02 lakh in 2014-15.

The enrolments of ST and OBC students have increased to 27.1 lakh and 1.63 crore in 2021-22 respectively.

The survey showed that the total number of Universities / University level institutions registered is 1,168 while colleges and Standalone Institutions are 45,473 and 12,002 respectively.

Among Disciplines at undergraduate level in AISHE 2021-22, enrolment is highest in Arts (34.2%), followed by science (14.8%), Commerce (13.3%) and Engineering & Technology (11.8%).

Among streams at postgraduate level in AISHE 2021-22, maximum students are enrolled in Social Science (21.1%) followed by science (14.7%).

Ph.D. enrolment has increased by 81.2% to 2.12 lakh in 2021-22 compared to 1.17 lakh in 2014-15.

The total number of faculty and teachers in 2021-22 stands at 15.98 lakh, of which about 56.6 percent are male and 43.4% are female.

There has been an increase in the number of Female faculty and teachers.

As per the survey, there were 6.94 lakh female teachers in 2021-22, an increase of 22 per cent since 2014-15.

Moreover, there is a marginal betterment of females per 100 male faculty from 75 in 2020-21 to 77 in 2021-22.