NEW DELHI: Girls have been closing the gap with boys in enrolment for

. Now, for the first time, in two states they have gone ahead.

According to the latest All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) released by the HRD ministry on Saturday, in

and

, there are now more females in the age group of 18-23 enrolling for higher education than male students.

The gender shift is most pronounced in UP. A year ago, there were 1.61 lakh more male students than female in colleges and universities of UP. Today, there are 90,000 more girls than boys. In campuses in Karnataka, girls are marginally higher (1,600). Overall, female enrolment has improved from 47.6% in 2017-18 to 48.6% in the latest survey.

In terms of subjects and streams, at undergraduate level, more than one-third of students (35.9%) are enrolled in arts/humanities/ social science, while 16.5% are pursuing science.

Report: Science, commerce less popular than arts

Science and engineering technology registered relatively more enrolment in M.Phil and Ph.D programmes. According to the AISHE report, while at the UG level, 35.9% of the total enrolment was in arts/ humanities/ social sciences, just 16.5% students are pursuing science, followed by commerce with 14.1%. Engineering is the fourth choice.

The gross enrolment ratio (GER) too has increased marginally—from 25.8 in 2017-18 to 26.3 in 2018-19, while in absolute terms, enrolment has increased from 3.66 crore to 3.74 crore students in the same period. GER for SCs has also shown a growth from 21.8 to 23.0 and STs from 15.9 to 17.2.