About

The issue of gender in higher education is an important theme of inquiry and policy engagement in India, and in countries the Global South. The current policy focus on reforms in the sector, as outlined in the ‘National Education Policy 2020’, is devoted, on the one hand, to increasing access. On the other hand, it has an inclusive vision on gender, where the Government of India takes the responsibility of establishing a “Gender Inclusion Fund” to build national capacities. As per the All- India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) for India, the Gross Enrolment Ratios (GER-in Higher Education) have witnessed an overall rise, with a near gender- parity in enrolments.

Yet, the overall participation is still low, as only a quarter of the eligible youth population of ages 18-23 years are enrolled in higher education in India. Most data indicators and sociological studies point to the relatively small base of participation and the persistence of higher education as an ‘elite sphere’. Further, gender is an important determinant of social exclusion, in India and in the Global South, although there are notable variations in terms of how this plays out in specific regions. This theme of variation has special significance to understanding the specific nature of persisting inequalities in higher education, especially as it relates to gender.

Within India, girls belonging to marginalised social castes and tribes (referred to as the scheduled castes and tribes) have significantly lower GERs—SC female at 23.3%; and ST females are the worst off at 17.5%--are distinctly lower than the all- India enrolment rates for females at 27.9 percent. It is also seldom the case that girls from segregated zones of urban marginalization make it to elite urban colleges. Informal social and cultural pressures keep girls from such zones of urban stigma away from participation in an ostensibly free and fair public system. North-Eastern states in India speak of processes of gender exclusion that are at variance from mainstream Indian states. The average overall participation rates (including for girls) are significantly lower than the all-India average GER of 27.3 percent in three states—Assam (17.5%), Nagaland (17.3 percent), and Tripura (19.2 percent). Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur have higher than all India average participation rates, (33.7 percent and 37.8percent respectively), including higher levels of enrolment for girls as compared to boys.

There is also an abundant ‘supply’ as the best and oldest public higher education facilities are concentrated in urban areas. Yet, enclaves within the urban create imaginary boundaries of stigma, and public facilities for higher education lie outside of it. Women can hardly participate as equals if spaces of higher education become overt assertion and display of masculine power.

The All- India Survey of Higher Education gives detailed data accounts in this regard. The assumption of the pipeline—the theory of natural ascension to the top once they have entered the academic workforce—does not hold in the Indian university system. There are few women in leadership positions in Indian universities. Women constitute a disproportionately high share of the casual workforce at the bottom—of temporary teachers on contract. The hierarchy of the academia thus constructs and consolidates gendered power, and the general discourse on inefficient academic bureaucracy fails to highlight this in significant ways.