Gender Disparity in Ph.D Courses; Dominated Largely by Men

Sukriti Vajpayee

Updated On: August 06, 2019 06:59 pm IST

Surveys conducted in recent years have revealed that the Ph.D courses in India are mostly dominated by male students. Women prefer to enrol themselves in M.Phil courses instead.

Gender Disparity in Ph.D

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had recently invited suggestions for promoting and improving the quality of research produced by Indian universities. Among all the reasons responsible for the poor quality of research given by Indian varsities, gender disparity was one of the primary issues that are plaguing the research ecosystem.

There has been a rise in the number of students opting for Ph.D as opposed to students choosing M.Phil programmes. The number of enrolments in M.Phil is declining and more students are going for the degree of Ph.D. In the last few years, the total admissions in Ph.D have increased twofold, reaching from 77,798 Ph.D admissions for the session of 2010-2011 to 1,61,412 admissions in the session of 2017-2018.

If we look at the statistics of M.Phil admissions done in the past few years, we find that 43,267 students had enrolled in the programmes of M.Phil in 2016-2017 but the number dropped down to 34,109 in the academic session of 2017-2018. However, despite the total number of M.Phil admissions dipping in the last few years, it was observed that the enrolment in the course comprised more women than men. For the academic year of 2017-2018, a total of 21,822 women had taken admission in M.Phil, whereas the total number of men was 12,287.

Also Read:UGC Proposes Major Changes in the Ph.D Admissions and Course Module

The Ph.D enrollments, however, are mostly dominated by male students by a huge margin. Only 65,000 women took admission in Ph.D in the year 2017-2018 as opposed to 1 lakh men. The reports of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) from the year 2010 to 2018 have revealed that about 56 per cent of the total researches in India have been carried out in the fields of Engineering, Science, and Technology. This is a major reason why there are fewer women in Ph.D as the fields of STEM are mostly dominated by men. The Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, acknowledged this fact and said that in the areas of arts and humanities, education, social sciences, health sciences, etc. women earn more Ph.D degrees than men.

Also Read: BHU to Launch Central Discovery Centre for Research with Hi-Tech Facilities

Another reason attributed to this issue is that women are stopped from pursuing higher education because of family reasons, limitations, or societal pressure. M.Phil can be completed in two years and hence, it is a viable option for most women.

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