Bachelor of Arts (BA) courses had the highest enrollment in the country at 1.13 crore students, followed by Bachelor of Science (BSc) courses at 49.66 lakh students, according to the government’s All India Survey for Higher Education (AISHE) 2021-22.

The survey report released by the Ministry of Education on late evening of Thursday showed that of the 1.13 crore students enrolled in Bachelor of Arts (BA), 51 per cent are women students and 49 per cent are men.

In Science discipline too, while the overall registration is 49.18 lakh students, of them women dominate with 50.8 per cent and 49.2 per cent are men. However, when it comes to commerce, men takes the lead with 52.8 per cent and women are at 47.2 per cent. A total of 44.08 lakh students enrolled in the commerce discipline. 

The gap is highest in the engineering and technology domain where as many as 39.04 lakh students are enrolled of them only 29.1 per cent are women students and 70.9 per cent are men.

At the UG level, BA degree has been awarded to 24.16 lakh (22.5% of the total out-turn) students which is the highest among all programmes, the report added.

Among the BA passed-out students, 54.03 per cent are females. BSc has the second highest number of passed outs with 12.53 lakh students (11.7% of total out-turn). 54.07% of BSc passed students are female.

BCom has 11.08 lakh out-turn (10.3% of the total out-turn). Among them 50.48 per cent of the BCom graduates are female students. 

Interestingly, 54,547 students have been awarded with MBBS degree, of which 28,073 (51.47%) are women students. 

For programmes including BA, BSc, BCom and MBBS, female out-turn is more than the male out turn. Women also make up 55 per cent of the total increase in overall enrollment (91 lakh) in higher education since 2014-15.

At the UG level (in regular mode), female participation is high for programmes like BA-Bachelor of Arts (female to male ratio: 113), BSc (female to male ratio: 108), B.A.(Hons)-Bachelor of Arts (Honors) (female to male ratio: 124), B.Ed.-Bachelor of Education (female to male ratio: 176)

At the PG level, the maximum number of students are enrolled in social science stream with 10.8 lakh followed by science and management with 7.5 lakh and 7.3 lakh, respectively. Of the total students in social science, 56.6 per cent are female and 43.4 per cent are male students.

At the PG level too, the number of MA graduates is maximum (7.02 lakh) followed by MSc (3.56 lakh) and MBA (2.32 lakh). 

The total enrolment for PhD programme is 2,12,474. At the PhD level, around 24.8 per cent enrolment (52,748 students) is in engineering and technology and 21.3 per cent of enrolment (45,324 students) is in science. Social science, medical science and management are some other major disciplines which students opt to pursue for PhD level academic programmes. 

For engineering and technology, overall enrolment in UG, PG, MPhil and PhD levels is 41,31,303. Of these, the highest enrolment is in computer engineering (12,91,103) followed by electronics and mechanical engineering at 605023 and 574940 students respectively.

The Ministry of Education has been conducting the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) since 2011. It covers all higher educational institutions located in the country imparting higher education. The survey collects detailed information on different parameters including student enrolment and teachers’ data.