Bridging Gender Gap in Indian Higher Education System

Abstract

Higher education equips a person to make better life choices. It assures economic mobility and the future success of a person. However, gender discrimination restricts the development of individuals as well as the entire nation. Gender inequality prevents the contribution of nearly half of our human resources in social, cultural, political, and research fields which further decreases productivity of the society. Although India has made several efforts to reduce the gender gap, India still ranks 135^th out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, 2022. Women are still concentrated in few female-friendly and low-paying jobs. One of the foremost steps for the development of a society is the elimination of gender gap in the education system. From independence till now India has made remarkable progress in reducing the gender gap in terms of enrolment in elementary education but simply reducing the gender gap in enrolment is not enough it does not assure gender equality; a lot more needs to be done. NEP-2020 states that the gender gap remains in India even after successive government efforts. The present paper intends to explore the ways of bridging the gender gap in the Indian higher education system, what has been done, and what more needs to be done.