In the 2020-21 academic year, colleges approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) enrolled 658,191 undergraduate students. Of those students, 30.2% were female students. More recently, women represented 29.2% of participants in Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Technology degree programs in the 2019-20 school year. Although mechanical engineering enrolls one of the highest number of undergraduates, women comprise only about 5.9% of these participants. Women are well represented among enrolled undergraduates in architecture (52.5%) and electronics engineering (41.7%) disciplines.
A similar trend is observed among undergraduate engineering and technology degree holders for the 2019-20 academic year. While the discipline of mechanical engineering discipline graduates one of the highest numbers of engineering degree holders, women are exceedingly underrepresented (5.6%) among these graduates. In the disciplines of architecture, electronics engineering, and information technology, women represent about half of the degree holders in those disciplines, representing 55.7%, 48.7% and 46.3%, respectively, of the graduates.
Additional Resources
- All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
- Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), (2020). All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2019-20. New Delhi, India: Government of India, Department of Higher Education.
- Aspiring Minds. (2019). National employability report: Engineers. Annual Report 2019.