CHENNAI: The All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-29, released by the Centre recently, reveals that Tamil Nadu is among the states that have a higher enrollment of women in undergraduate and postgraduate courses compared to men. Despite this, the total number of male enrollment is still marginally higher than female enrollment in higher education.
However, does this mean that there is gender parity in higher education?
At the undergraduate level for example, there is an enrollment of about 13.31 lakh female students as opposed to 12.60 lakh male students. When it comes to enrollment in postgraduate education, women make up over 60 per cent of total students. Even as M Phil has been derecognised by the Centre, almost 10,000 women have enrolled in the time period as opposed to about 7,000 men.
Professional courses
The trend is, however, different when it comes to professional courses like diploma and in subcategories of other higher education courses like engineering. In diploma courses, which are often used as a primer for employment, only 18.26 per cent of enrollments are by women. That is, for every nine men who enroll into diploma courses, only two women do. Similarly, the number of male enrollments, even if not by a large margin, is higher than female enrollments for PhD, post graduate diploma and integrated courses.
Apart from diplomas, a finer dissection of the courses popular among women shows an inclination towards science, arts and commerce courses. On the other hand, the proportion of women in courses like engineering, journalism or agriculture is much smaller in comparison to men. One of the professional courses however more popular among women is Bachelor of Education (B.Ed).
Former University of Madras Vice Chancellor P Duraisamy speculated that one of the reasons fewer women enroll in professional courses is because they are more expensive. "If you see, courses like engineering are more expensive. Parents are more willing to send their daughters to higher education, but are not prepared to pay for expensive courses," he said, explaining that this is why more women opt for Arts and Science courses.
He further said that women are often married off right after college, so "there is more pressure for men to earn immediately after college as opposed to women. In most cases women asked to migrate for marriage after college. So they do not study from the point of finding a job."
Gender parity in higher education
According to AISHE 2019-20, the difference between male and female enrollments in Tamil Nadu is around 36,000. This trend of higher enrollment of male students is common in all the top six states which have the highest total student enrolment. This includes Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Tamil Nadu has 50.5 per cent male enrollment and 49.5 per cent female enrollment and a Gender Parity Index (GPI) of 0.99.
GPI is the ratio of females to males in higher education. It has increased from 0.97 in 2018-19, 0.98 in 2017-18 and 0.95 in 2016-17. There has been a significant jump from 0.80 in 2010-11. At the country level, it is 1.01 in 2019-20 against 1.00 in 2018-19 and over 20 states and Union territories have a GPI that is higher than Tamil Nadu's.
There is no doubt that the number of women in higher education has risen significantly in the last decade. However, the finer details of the survey show that there is scope for more growth in Tamil Nadu.
AISHE showed that Tamil Nadu’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) crossed the 50 per cent mark — nearly double the country’s overall GER. This means that half the population between the age group of 18-23 are not in college.
KR Renuka from the Centre for Women's Development and Research told The New Indian Express that a large number of those enrolled in higher education hail from middle class or affluent families. "There are many children in the rural areas, who perform very well at school. Parents cannot afford higher education, especially if they are women," she said, explaining that parents opt to save for dowry and marriage as opposed to higher education.
These discrepancies assume further significance in view of the DMK government's initiative to find out why fewer government school students enroll themselves in professional courses in higher education.