More people going for higher studies, show census data

In 2011, almost half the households in India with at least one member aged 15 or more had at least one person in standard-X or higher. That year, there were 248 million households with at least one member aged at least 15. Of these, 122.9 million (49.5 per cent) had at least one member in the ‘matriculate-and-above’ category, showed census data released on Thursday. This was a ten percentage point rise compared to 2001.

In rural and urban areas, the figure was 67.7 million and 55.2 million, respectively, in 2011.

Data showed in 2001, the number of households across the country with at least one graduate stood at 41.4 million (16.7 per cent), against 23.6 million (12.2 per cent) in 2001. For rural and urban areas, the figure was 15.8 million and 26.6 million, respectively, in 2011.

The data show a marked divide across regions, with a higher proportion in southern states graduating compared to northern states. Data showed in Kerala, 20.1 per cent of the population were graduates, followed by Tamil Nadu (18.4 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (16.6 per cent). Among northern states, Punjab had 15 per cent, Rajasthan 10.8 per cent and Haryana 6.8 per cent.

Data released recently showed there was a 3.73 percentage point increase in the proportion of those attending educational institutions — from 22.23 per cent in 2001 to 25.97 per cent (310 million) in 2011. During 2011-2011, while men saw a three percentage point rise, women saw an increase of 4.52 percentage points. The number of households in which at least one male member was ‘matriculate and above’ was 104.7 million (42.2 per cent), while for women, it was 75.3 million (30.3 per cent) households. A total of 33.2 million (13.4 per cent) households had at least one male graduate, while 21.9 million (8.8 per cent) had at least one female graduate.