Indian higher education enrolment reaches new record
More women and people from marginalised groups enrolling in higher education has helped the Indian sector expand by almost a fifth since the start of the decade, new figures show.
The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), conducted by the Ministry of Education, has revealed that total student enrolment in higher education in 2023-24 reached 45 million, 17 per cent higher than in the academic year 2019-20.
A total of 59,553 higher education institutions participated in the latest iteration of the survey.
It also shows that women accounted for nearly half of all students (49.7 per cent) in 2023-24, having increased by 42.2 per cent since 2014-15.
Women’s share in STEM enrolment also increased to 44 per cent in 2023-24. STEM enrolment across the board is the highest that it has been, recorded at 10.2 million. The growth in STEM reflects India’s continued interest in strengthening national industries related to digital technologies, science and innovation.
The total number of international students pursuing higher education in India has also increased to a total of 58,134 in 2023-24.
Foreign students came to India from 173 different countries in the years 2023-24. Nepal, which shares a border with India, accounted for the highest share at 24.1 per cent, making it India’s largest source of international students. Following Nepal, the UAE accounted for 7 per cent of foreign students, ahead of the United States (5.9 per cent), Bangladesh (5.9 per cent), Nigeria (5.5 per cent), and Zimbabwe (4 per cent).
This is the first AISHE release since January 2024. And while the AISHE is the Indian government’s main source of official higher education statistics, some academics have questioned the timeliness and relevance of the survey findings given that the data is now over two years old.
Rahul Choudaha, principal of DrEducation Research, a consultancy that analyses global higher education trends and insights, told Times Higher Education that while a survey of this scale will naturally take time to collate, “data with a lag of almost three years isn’t a planning tool anymore; it’s a historical record.”
“If AISHE data is going to inform policy, resource allocation, and institutional decision-making the way it’s meant to, it needs to move back to a predictable, annual cadence. Irregular release cycles undermine the very purpose of the survey, however rich the underlying data is.”
Choudaha added that this challenge is not unique to India, highlighting the 18-month lag in the data provided by the UK Higher Education Statistics Agency.
“Some lag between data collection and publication seems to be a structural feature of higher-education reporting everywhere, not a limitation unique to India,” he said.
rosalind.skillen@timeshighereducation.com