NEW DELHI: Female scholars number just 24% in 127 institutions of national importance though overall there are more females in eight out of 16 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes on the Indian campuses, according to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2018-19.There are more females pursuing science and medicine at undergraduate level, while for BCom now, there are 99 females for every 100 males on campus. Also women comfortably outnumber men among those graduating at UG, PG, PG diploma and MPhil level.Female participation is very high and has also increased sharply at MA, MSc and MCom levels during the last five years. Today some of the programmes where the gender gap is significantly in favour of the females are medical (at UG level) where it is 60.6%, Arts at 53.03% and Science at 51% of total enrolment. In master’s level there are more females in Science and Arts with 62.72% and 61.78% of total enrolment respectively.Female participation has been dominant in BA, BEd, BSc nursing, MA, MCom and MSc for past five years. But the bigger stride by women in the last five years has been made in BCom, BSc and MBBS .But what can cause some concern are the figures for the last three years in institutions of national importance which show the numbers for female scholars are more or less static at institutions like AIIMS, IITs, IISERs, NITs and Schools of Planning and Architecture, among others.Females have also a lot of catching up to do in law where enrolment stands at 33.7% and just 28% and 28.86% in BTech and BE, respectively. In MTech, there has been a continuous decline as the number of females per 100 males have dipped from 64 in 2014-15 to 54 in 2018-19. Despite marked improvement from 58 females per 100 males to 75 in MBA courses, and 64 in 2014-15 to 70 in 2018-19 in BCA, the gender gap remains significant.Women fare poorly in overall enrolment in technical education (BE/ BTech) with the bulk of the institutions of importance offering professional technical courses. The biggest gap is at the undergraduate level, where there are 26,736 females as compared to 96,724 males. Similarly at postgraduate level, the number of females is just 12,819 in a population of 50,201.The AISHE data also indicates a shift in preference as increasing number of students opt for professional programmes like management, law, computer applications, pharmacology and medicine, touching a five-year high in enrolment. However, traditional engineering and arts programme, as well as BTech/ BE/ MTech enrolment have continued to slide in the last five years.As per the report, MCom, MSc, BEd, BBA, LLB, BPharm, BSc nursing and MBBS have registered the highest percentage point growth in the last five years, recording all-time high enrolment. Other programmes which are on the growth path are MBA, BCom, BCA and BBA.Meanwhile, enrolment numbers continue to decline for the fifth consecutive year for engineering and technology, bachelor in arts. BSc and MA have for the first time in five years registered negative enrolment figures in 2018-19.