ALL INDIA SURVEY ON HIGHER EDUCATION (AISHE) – REPORTS AND INDICES
News: Student
enrolments went up by 7.5% in 2020-21, All India Survey on Higher Education
data show
What's in the news?
● The
Union Ministry of Education released
data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which
showed a 7.5% increase in student
enrolments across the country compared to 2019-20, with total student
enrolments reaching 4.13 crore.
Key takeaways from the report:
● Total
student enrolment in higher education in 2020-21 increased to around 4.13 crore
(crossing the 4 crore mark for the 1st time) from 3.85 crore in 2019-20.
● A
total of 2.12 crore (51.3%) male and 2.01 crore (48.7%) female students were
enrolled in Higher Education.
● Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER)
in higher education for the age group
18-23 years in 2020-21, is estimated to be 27.3, as compared to 25.6 in
2019-20.
● Gender Parity Index (GPI)
i.e. the ratio of female GER to male GER, has increased from 1 in 2017- 18 to
1.05 in 2020-21.
Significance:
1. Rise in distance education:
● In
2020-21 - the year when the COVID-19 pandemic began, there was a 7% rise in enrolments in distance
education programmes.
2. Social Inclusion:
● The
data showed that there were 2lakh more SC
students who got enrolled in 2020-21 compared to the previous year.
● The
year also saw about 3lakh more ST
students and 6lakh more OBC students getting enrolled for higher education.
● The
total student enrolment in North East
States is 12.06 Lakh in 2020-21 as compared to 9.36 Lakh in 2014-15.
● 43%
universities and 61.4% colleges are located in rural areas.
3. Gender Inclusion:
● The
female enrolment in higher education
programmes had increased to 49% of total enrolments in 2020-21 compared to
45% the previous year.
● The female enrolment has increased to 2.01 crore from 1.88 crore in 2019-20. There has been an increase of around 44 Lakh (28%) since 2014-15.
4. Popular courses:
● Among
all undergraduate enrolments, the most popular remained the Bachelor of Arts programme, which saw
104 lakh enrolments (52.7% women; 47.3% men), followed by Bachelor of Science
courses, where too women outnumbered men.
5. Increasing enrollment in Public Institutions:
● Government
universities constituting 59.1% of total universities contribute 73.1% of total
enrolment, whereas the 40% private universities account for only 26.3% of total
enrolment.
Issues:
1. Proportion of students dropped:
● The
proportion of SC students dropped to
14.2% in 2020-21 from 14.7% the previous year and the proportion of OBC students dropped to 35.8% in
2020-21 from 37% the previous year.
● The
proportion of Muslim students
enrolling for higher education dropped from 5.5% in 2019-20 to 4.6% in 2020-21
with the proportion of ‘other minority students’ dropping from 2.3% to 2% in
the same period.
● The
number of students in the Persons with
Disabilities category also dropped in 2020-21 to 79,035 from 92,831 the
previous year.
2. SC and ST teachers under-represented:
● The
survey found that the number of teachers increased across higher education
institutes, SC and ST teachers continued to be under-represented.
● At
All-India level, 56.2% teachers belong to General category; 32.2% to OBC; 9.1% to SC and 2.5% to ST category.
● About
5.6% teachers come from Muslim minority group and 8.8% are from other minority
groups.
3. Lesser women teachers:
● The
survey also found that there were 75
women teachers to every 100 male ones across institutes in the country.
Go back to basics:
AISHE:
● The
report provides key performance indicators on the current status of higher
education in the country. It is annually released by the Department of Higher
Education, the Ministry of Education.
● The
Ministry has been conducting an annual
web-based AISHE since 2010-11 in which it provides key performance
indicators on the current status of higher education in the country.
Indicators and Parameters:
● Data
is collected on several parameters such
as teachers, student enrolment, programmes, examination results, education
finance and infrastructure.
● Indicators
of educational development such as Institution Density, Gross Enrolment Ratio
(GER), Pupil-Teacher ratio (PTR), Gender Parity Index (GPI) and Per Student
Expenditure (PSE) will also be calculated from the data collected through
AISHE.
Facts:
● Uttar Pradesh
has the highest number of colleges in the country, followed by Maharashtra and
Karnataka, according to the Government's All India Survey for Higher Education
(AISHE) 2020-21.