India’s higher education landscape is not only growing — it is changing in ways that matter for international collaboration
The recently released All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023–24 records around 45 million students in higher education, across 1,289 universities and more than 48,000 colleges.
Some of the shifts are particularly noteworthy.
India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio has reached 30%, while the female GER has risen to 31.2%, continuing to exceed that of men. STEM enrolment now stands at more than 10 million students, with women accounting for around 44% of STEM enrolment.
For Nordic universities and higher education institutions engaging with India, these numbers point to both scale and opportunity.
India offers an increasingly large and diverse pool of students, researchers and potential institutional partners — particularly in STEM and other areas central to Nordic–India cooperation. At the same time, the next phase of India’s higher education development is increasingly focused on questions of research quality, institutional capacity, employability, industry collaboration and internationalisation.
These are areas where international academic partnerships can potentially move beyond mobility alone — towards joint education, research collaboration, faculty exchange, innovation partnerships and longer-term institutional relationships.
Understanding the changing Indian higher education landscape is an important part of building meaningful Nordic–India cooperation.
Read the University World News analysis:
“Equity initiatives help drive India’s HE enrolment to 45m”- https://lnkd.in/d_sGNx7S
Source data: All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2023–24, Ministry of Education, Government of India. https://lnkd.in/dauCuV7k
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