NEW DELHI: Classrooms in colleges and universities in the country continue to be dominated by men. The recently released All India Survey for Higher Education 2018-19 shows that there are 14,16,299 teachers in institutes of higher education, of which nearly 58 per cent are men.
The survey is based on figures collated from 993 universities, 39,931 colleges and 10,725 stand-alone institutions in India — both private and government.
The situation is the worst in Bihar, where the female to male teachers’ ratio is approximately 1:4. In percentage, 78.97 per cent of teachers in the state are men.
Jharkhand comes a close second with 69.8 per cent male teachers. Uttar Pradesh is marginally better then both these states with 32.3 per cent female teachers.
A few states such as Kerala, Haryana, Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Delhi and Goa have a healthier male to female teachers’ ratio.
Surprisingly, the highest number of women teachers is demonstrators and tutors, followed by assistant professors but the gender ratio gets distorted as we move higher up.
“Even though teaching is regarded as a profession appropriate for women, data shows that women teachers continue to struggle to make career progression due to qualification barrier that often comes up due to social reasons,” said Amber Ahmad, who teaches political science at Kamala Nehru College in Delhi University.
The survey also shows that at the all-India level there are 73 female teachers per 100 male teachers.
For the Muslim minority, it is 57 female per 100 male teachers. According to the survey, the female representation of teachers belonging to persons with disabilities is extremely low with just 37 female per 100 male teachers.
Also, the highest number of women teachers is in nursing colleges and the lowest in institutes directly under the ministries, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology.
