PUNE: More women among the total number of students were enrolled for higher education, from certificate courses to doctoral programmes, in Maharashtra.
Their numbers were up from 19.05 lakh in 2018-19 to 19.51 lakh in 2019-20, the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) report released on Thursday said.
The report also said the Gender Parity Index for the state rose from 0.86 in 2015-16 to 0.93 in 2019-20.
The index is better when it is closer to 1.
Maharashtra with 4,494 colleges is second after Uttar Pradesh, with 34 colleges available per lakh population.
In terms of state-share in 2019-20, the state tops in the enrolment in universities, including constituent units like sub-centres, with 9.67 lakh students, followed by Tamil Nadu with 9.26 lakh and Delhi with 8.16 lakh pupils.
But, the number of foreign students enrolled in the state was down to 4,599 in 2019-20 as against 5003 in 2018-19.
Pune has retained its fourth place in the country as the city with the highest number of colleges at 467 compared to 450 in 2018-19.
Dhanraj Mane, state director for higher education, said the increase in colleges in rural areas is one of the reasons for more girls enrolling in higher education.
“Hostel facilities are made available to them.
The free bus pass girl students get helps them to complete school education and enter college.
The increase in nursing colleges in the state has helped more women take up the course as the possibility of getting a job is high.
Women have also started taking the benefit of various scholarships available to them due to better awareness of the schemes, which boosts higher enrolment,” Mane added.
V N Magare, pro-vice chancellor of SNDT Women’s University, said awareness about women empowerment is increasing resulting in more of them taking up higher education.
“As an exclusive university for women, our founding fathers wanted to empower them.
We provide skill-based education which helps them get a job easily and that helps them stand on their own feet.
This inspires other women to take up higher education too.
The numbers will increase more in the coming years,” Magare added.
All-India Trends The report also said that the number of universities and similar institutions listed on AISHE portal increased from 799 in 2015-16 to 1,043 in 2019-20 by almost 30.5% and the number of colleges from 39,071 to 42,343 in the same period by 8.4%.
Not many universities came up in the larger states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal in 2019-20 when compared with the previous year.
Enrolment grew considerably during the last five years from 3.45 crore in 2015-16 to 3.
85 crore in 2019-20, posting an overall growth of 11.4%.
The enrolment at the doctoral level increased from 1.26 lakh to 20.25 lakh and in the integrated level it rose from 15.54 lakh to 30.03 lakh during this period and teachers’ numbers went up from 15.03 lakh to 15.
81 lakh.
Similarly, enrolment in various undergraduate programmes increased over the years in the regular mode of education except in BA.
and BTech, where it has started showing a decline.
Women’s participation is very high and has increased sharply at MA, M.Com and M.Sc levels in the five-year period, but their participation is still low in undergraduate courses like BCA, BBA, B.Tech, BE and LLB.
The Rising Curve Year—Men —–Women —-Total 2019-20—-23,13,862—19,51,610—42,65,472 2018-19—-23,24,424—-19,05,902—42,30,326 2017-18—-22,71,078—-18,60,679——41,31,757 2016-17—-22,39,764—–17,76,545—–40,16,309 2015-16—-22,47,820—–17,39,492——39,87,312 Foreign Students’ Numbers Dip Vijay Khare, director of the International Centre at Savitribai Phule Pune University said, “There is stiff competition that Maharashtra faces from private and deemed universities from southern states as well as in and around Delhi.
They have an aggressive marketing strategy that attracts foreign students that we lack.
This can be one reason for the decline.” Another senior official from SPPU said that one of the reasons for the decline may also be due to the tougher admission policy for international students in Maharashtra.
“Technical education, especially engineering, is sought after by these students but when it comes to admission in the state, it is a lengthy and difficult process with hardly any counselling available to the students.
This process needs to be streamlined,” he added
With 9.6L students, Maha tops in university enrolment
