More male teachers than females in varsities; highest in Bihar: HRD survey

There are more male teachers in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the country than females, with the lowest gender proportion in Bihar, according to the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) by the HRD Ministry.

Similarly, the non-teaching staff in varsities and colleges comprises of more men than women.

"The total number of teachers are 14,16,299, out of which about 57.8 per cent are male teachers and 42.2 pc are female teachers. The lowest gender proportion is recorded in Bihar where 78.97 pc are male teachers and only 21.03 pc are females.

"Jharkhand comes close second with 69.8 pc male teachers and 30.2 pc female teachers. Uttar Pradesh has 32.3 pc female teachers of the total teachers in the state. A few States like Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Delhi and Goa on the other hand have more female teachers than male teachers," the survey report said.

For the annual survey, the higher education institutions are categorized in 3 broad categories--university, college and stand-alone institutions. A total of 962 universities; 38,179 colleges and 9190 stand alone institutions participated in the survey for the year 2018-19.

"At All-India level there are merely 73 female teachers per 100 male teachers. For Muslim minority, it is 57 female teachers per 100 males whereas for other minority, there are 151 females per 100 male teachers. However, the female representation of teachers belonging to Persons with Disabilities (PWD) category is low, that is 37 female per 100 male teachers," according to the survey.

"Looking at female per 100 male teachers, there are 58 teachers at university level, 76 and 71 female teachers per 100 male teachers at college and stand-alone institutions, respectively," it said.

The only course which has highest number of female teachers than males is nursing.

"For different types of stand-alone institutions, the number of female teachers per 100 male teachers varies significantly as there are only 47 female teachers per 100 male teachers in technical or polytechnic institutions, 68 in teacher training, 61 in management institutions and 18 in institutions under ministries which is the lowest.

"Contrast to this, nursing courses have 330 female teachers per 100 male teachers which is the highest among all," the survey report said.

Similarly, out of the 12,14,302 non-teaching positions in HEIs, 67.11 per cent are with males as compared to 32.89 pc female staff.

"In Bihar, the male staff share is the highest with 84.6 pc and only 15.40 pc females, while Uttar Pradesh also hase a higher share of male staff with 78.5 pc and 21.5 pc females. West Bengal comes third in this ratio share with 77.33 pc male and 22.67 pc female staff.

"The average number of female per 100 male non-teaching staff is approximately 49. The highest number of female per 100 male non-teaching staff is 86 from other minority groups and Muslims have the lowest number of females per 100 male non-teaching staff with 35 females," the report said.