Mumtaz Alam, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, July 23: The enrolment of Muslim students in colleges, universities and other institutes of higher learning has seen steady growth since 2012-2013 – the academic year from which the central government began collecting separate data on Muslim enrolment in higher education.
From 4.15% of the country’s total enrolment in higher education in the year 2012-13, Muslim enrolment grew to 4.67% in 2015-16, reveals the All India Survey on Higher Education or AISHE 2015-16.
In terms of numbers, in the year 2012-13, a total of 3,01,52,417 students were enrolled in higher education in the country – 12,51,656 of them or 4.15% were Muslim. Three years later, i.e. in the year 2015-16, some 3,45,84,781 students were enrolled in higher education and 16,13,710 or 4.67% of them were Muslim.
There are 799 universities, 39,071 colleges and 11,923 Stand Alone Institutions (which are not empowered to provide degree and therefore run Diploma Level Programmes) listed on AISHE web portal.
Source: AISHE 2015-16
The report is based on inputs from 774 universities, 35,667 colleges and 7,915 Stand Alone Institutions.
The steady rise shows that the country’s largest religious minority has started giving attention to higher education.
Source: AISHE 2015-16
However, given their population share or compared to other backward communities like Scheduled Castes (SCs), Muslims are far far behind.
As per Census 2011, Muslims constitute 14.2% of the nation’s population but are just 4.67% of country’s higher education enrolment.
In 2012-13, the enrolment of SCs in higher education was 12.8% which grew to 13.9% in 2015-16. SCs constitute 16.2% of the total population in the country. In the corresponding period, Other Backward Classes relatively made a bigger jump – from 31.2% in 2012-13 to 33.8% in 2015-16. OBCs are 40.94% of national population.
Enrolment in Higher Education in India
Categories
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2014-15
2015-16
All
29184331
30152417
32336234
34211637
34584781
SC
3572074
3847942
4238207
4606666
4810314
ST
1310261
1320361
1486512
1640809
1704461
OBC
8772138
9416299
10464043
11256849
11673535
Muslim
No Data
1251656
1396759
1533658
1613710
Other Minorities
No Data
564227
631730
649526
682961
The percentage of enrolment of both SCs and OBCs in higher education is not much far from that of their population percentage. But Muslim enrolment is more than three times less than their population percentage.
