Number of women pursuing higher education up by over 100 pc

While in 1950-51, approximately 40,000 women enrolled for higher education, today this number has multiplied over 100 fold to the current level of over 42 lakh women.

Moreover, there were 14 women pursuing higher studies per hundred male in 1950-51, the ratio reached 68 women per hundred male at the end of academic year 2004-05.

Women’s enrolment was the highest in the State of Kerala at over 60.85 per cent and lowest in Bihar at 24.46 per cent of the total enrolment in higher education.

As many as 18 States had higher enrolment of women than national average of 40.40 per cent of total enrolment.

Nearly 10 per cent of the total number of 17800 colleges were women’s colleges. In addition, there were 7 women’s universities in the country.

Chairing the meeting, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Ali Ashraf Fatmi stressed the need of monitoring various programmes aimed at gender parity in education.

''The monitoring is essential keeping in view the budget allocations in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Mid-Day Meal Programme (MDM) and other programmes, said Mr Fatmai.

He also noted that ground realities were changing very fast and girls were entering into mainstream education because of the various initiatives of HRD.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is the national flagship programme for Universalisation of Elementary Education. It recognises the need for special efforts to bring the 'out of school' girls, especially from the disadvantaged groups, to the school, he said.

The Committee was also informed that the National Programme for Education of Girls at the Elementary Level (NPEGEL) and the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) Scheme specifically target girls from marginalised groups who are out of school or have not completed elementary education.

The Minister said that in order to target the disadvantaged sections of society, the Ministry was taking several initiatives.

The Consultative Committee was informed that gender parity in higher education critically dependent on the equity achieved at the lower levels of education. Even so, India has made impressive progress in terms of access of women to higher education.

During the meeting, the members gave valuable suggestions by raising important issues like validity of data on gender parity, earmarking of separate funds for minorities in respect of residential schools, grants, scholarships etc., increasing the number of schools exclusively for girls, strengthening of the KGBV and evaluating education keeping in view the requirement of girls and the need to reduce the drop-out rates.

The meeting, held yesterday, was attended by Ms D. Purandeswari, MOS for HRD and Members of Parliament who include Mr Kishanbhai Vestabhai Patel, Mr Harisinh Chavda, Ms P Satheedevi, Mr Francis Fanthome, Mr Rupchand Pal, Mr Rashid Alvi, Mr Asaduddin Owaisi, Mr Laxminarayan Sharma, Dr K Kasturirangan and Mr Sriniwas D. Patel.

UNI NAZ SK KP1820

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