Ministry of Education releases All India Survey on Higher Education.

• The Union Ministry of Education released data from the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 5% increase in student enrolments across the country compared to 2019-20.
• The survey also revealed that in 2020-21, the year when theCovid-19 pandemic began, there was a 7% rise in enrolments in distance education programmes.
  

About AISHE

• To portray the status of higher education in the country, the Ministry of Education has endeavored to conduct an annual web-based AISHE since 2010-11.
• Data is being collected on several parameters such as teachers, student enrolment, programmers, examination results, education finance, infrastructure.
• Indicators of educational development such as Institution Density, Gross Enrolment Ratio, Pupil-teacher ratio, Gender Parity Index, Per Student Expenditure will also be calculated from the data collected through AISHE.

• • These are useful in making informed policy decisions and research for development of the education sector.

Highlights of the AISHE Data

• Student Enrolment:
  • Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for all enrolments (as per 2011 Census) increased by over 2 points to 27.3.
    • The highest enrolment was seen at the undergraduate level,which accounted for 9% of all enrolments.
  • The female enrolment in higher education programmes had increased to 49% of total enrolments in 2020-21 compared to 45% in 2019-20.
    • But, the overall figures for Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) enrolments (at all levels of higher education) showed that women lagged behind men, who accounted for over 56% of enrolments in these fields.
  • Gender Parity Index (GPI),the ratio of female GER to male GER, has increased from 1 in 2017-18 to 1.05 in 2020-21.
  • The number of students in the Persons with Disabilities category dropped in 2020-21 to 79,035 from 92,831 in 2019-20.
  • The proportion of Muslim students enrolling for higher education dropped to 4.6% in 2020-21 from 5% in 2019-20.
  • Uttar Pradesh; Maharashtra; Tamil Nadu; Madhya Pradesh; Karnataka and Rajasthan are the top 6 States in terms of number of students enrolled.
• Universities and College:During 2020-21, the number of universities has increased by 70, and the number of colleges has increased by 1,453.
  • Uttar Pradesh; Maharashtra; Karnataka; Rajasthan; Tamil Nadu; Madhya Pradesh; Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are the top 8 States in terms of number of colleges.
• Faculty:The female per 100 male faculties has improved to 75 in 2020-21 from 74 in 2019-20 and 63 in 2014-15.