New Delhi: There has been a rise in the enrollment of women from minority communities in higher education in many states, with New Delhi, Haryana, Odisha, Chandigarh and Nagaland being the exceptions.
The numbers, collated since 2012, have been recorded in the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) report 2017-18, which was released by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar at the conference of vice-chancellors. The three-day conference began on July 26.
Vice-chancellors of central universities, state public universities, deemed-to-be universities, state private universities and directors of central institutes are participating in the conference.
The trend in Muslim community shows that across India, 8,98,121 Muslim women enrolled in higher education during 2017-2018, as compared to 8,22,830 women during 2016-17.
In Bihar, the number went up from 64,585 in 2016-17 to 67,841 in 2017-2018.
In Jammu and Kashmir, it rose from 57,200 in 2016-17 to 69,561 in 2017-18. Kerala showed a jump from 65,947 to 85,316 , while Rajasthan saw an increase from 13,909 to 16,276.
Uttar Pradesh, which has a sizeable Muslim population, saw the enrolment of women from the minority community go up to 1,62,990 in 2017-2018 from 1,58,490 in 2016-17.
According to Syed Zafar Mahmood of Zakat Foundation of India, the numbers are encouraging. “Muslims face adverse situations, especially in times of propaganda and prejudice. These conditions also drive a community to move towards education. It is important to have a community internally strong to counter all biases against it,” he said.
The AISHE report added that 4,48,517 women from other minority communities enrolled for higher education this year as compared to last year’s 4,28,866.
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