Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: India is closing long-standing gender gaps in education, with girls now outperforming boys on several fronts. The latest National Statistics Office (NSO) data shows that the transition remains uneven — from near parity in school enrolment to a gradual shift in higher education outcomes.The ‘women and men in India 2025’ report shows female gross enrolment ratio (GER) exceeding male GER at all school stages and women accounting for 51.48% of total higher education pass-outs, even as the overall literacy gender gap remains at 14.4 percentage points.The data underscores a generational shift.While the overall literacy gap remains wide, it narrows sharply to 3.8 percentage points among youth aged 15–24, reflecting faster gains among younger cohorts.
This marks a steady progression from earlier decades, with female literacy rising from 30.6% in 1981 to over 70% in recent estimates, though still trailing male literacy levels.At the school level, gender parity has effectively been achieved across primary to higher secondary stages, with girls not only matching, but exceeding boys in enrolment. Under the national education policy (NEP) framework, female enrolment is higher across foundational, preparatory, middle and secondary stages, while adjusted net enrolment rates (ANER) for girls at the secondary level have also surpassed boys in recent years.Dropout rates for both genders have declined between 2022-23 and 2024-25, with sharper reductions at preparatory and middle stages, although secondary-stage dropouts remain comparatively higher.In higher education, the trend is gradually tilting in favour of women. Female GER increased from 28.5% to 30.2%, compared to a smaller rise for males from 28.3% to 28.9% between 2021-22 and 2022-23. Women now account for a marginal majority of total pass-outs, with particularly high representation at advanced levels such as MPhil (76.14%), and over half of undergraduate and postgraduate completions.However, participation remains uneven across disciplines. Women are concentrated in arts, sciences, social sciences and medical streams, while men continue to dominate engineering, technology, IT and management, reflecting persistent segmentation in career pathways.Learning outcomes show a mixed pattern. Girls consistently outperform boys in languages and board examination pass percentages, while boys perform better in mathematics, particularly at higher grades. At the same time, female participation in higher education now spans over half of total enrolments in several disciplines, signalling broader access even as subject choices remain skewed.Despite improvements in access and participation, structural gaps remain. The mean years of schooling for women stands at 7.4 years, compared to an overall average of 8.4 years, indicating earlier drop-off in educational attainment. Spending patterns also reflect disparity, with average annual expenditure higher for boys (Rs 13,901) than for girls (Rs 12,101), pointing to continued differences in investment at household level.
