Gender Gaps Are Narrowing In Education, But Is This Enough For Digital India?

Over the last few decades, India’s progress on achieving gender parity in school enrolment, across different seniority levels has been remarkable. An analysis of the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database shows that India achieved gender parity in primary education enrolment in 2008, in secondary education enrolment was achieved in 2013 and in higher education enrolment in 2017.

This progress also earned the first rank in primary and tertiary education globally in the World Economic Forum’s Global gender gaps subindices ranking.

Yet, behind these headline numbers on enrolment, I often wonder if there are hidden gender gaps in learning outcomes, if there is a gender digital divide brewing that’s holding girls back, and if social norms are influencing subject selection and leading to gendered occupational segregation? Let us examine the evidence on these questions.

Learning Outcomes

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) report 2024 – a long standing barometer of research on learning outcomes, shows that while girls slightly outperform boys on reading ability, boys have an edge on mathematical ability. For instance, amongst students of class V, nearly 51 per cent of girls can read a standard II level text, compared to 47 per cent of boys, and yet, 29 per cent of girls can do division compared to 32 per cent of boys. However, encouragingly, girls are catching up with age, as 45 per cent of girls can standard VIII can do division compared to 44 per cent of boys – thankfully disproving the long held stereotypes around girls and math.

Gender digital divide. Evidence from multiple sources suggests that while most children use smartphones owned by parents, there is a significant gender gap in smartphone ownership – with nearly 36 per cent of boys owning their personal smartphone vs. 26 per cent of girls in the ASER 2024 survey.

Consultations undertaken by Nikore Associates between 2020 – 2023 with women’s groups across 15 states in the country showed that young girls were often the last to get access to a shared household smartphone, for the least amount of time, and most likely to have their usage monitored. This lack of exposure is then borne out in the gender gaps in digital skills performance, as 70 per cent of boys could use a smartphone for basic digital tasks like browsing for information or videos, vs. 62 per cent of girls in the ASER 2024 survey.

Moreover, currently, only 74 per cent of private schools and 46 per cent of government schools have internet facilities as per data from the Ministry of Education. This low technology readiness of schools disproportionately impacts girls who lack access to their own or even shared digital devices.

Gendered Occupational Segregation

The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2021-22 shows that women make up almost half the STEM graduates and undergraduates in country. Even at the doctoral level, female enrollment has nearly doubled, with women making up about 45 per cent of PhD candidates.

However, there is a clear divide when it comes to stream selection in higher education – with women outnumbering men in the education, medical sciences, nursing, commerce, and arts streams. On the other hand, men continue to dominate engineering, technology, computer sciences, and management, i.e. the streams with most potential for high growth, high paying corporate careers.

These trends in higher education, then clearly lead to occupational segregation on gendered lines – with women taking up teaching, or nursing jobs that are considered “appropriate” in a society that continues to consider women’s careers as secondary, and places onerous expectations of care and domestic work on them. And most critically, being excluded from jobs with high tech components.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 finds that almost 86 per cent of businesses surveyed expect artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and automation to transform their companies. Moreover, companies expected nearly a third of jobs to be fully automated, and at least half the remaining jobs to require human-machine collaboration by 2030. In such a scenario, there is a need for significant and continuous upskilling of India’s young women to ensure they emerge as true digital natives, with the capacity to take up meaningful employment in an increasingly digital economy. So, what must be done?

First – India needs a mass digital literacy program for girls. We all remember the flagship Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme which focussed on improving sex ratios as well as enrolment into primary and secondary school education for girls. The success of the scheme lay not only in the improved sex ratios and enrolment data but also in creating a national slogan and call to action. The time has come for the country to have a women-led digital literacy revolution- a so called Beti Padhao, Beti ko Phone Dilao clarion call to action, matched by a mass digital literacy program implemented in government and government aided schools across the country from foundation till secondary schools. Schemes for concessional smartphone loans for girls can also be introduced by state governments.

Second – improved technology readiness and technical education in schools. Going beyond traditional public sector financing, schools should be empowered to leverage partnerships with technology companies and corporate social responsibility programs to enhance internet facilities, access to computers, tablets and smartphones, and even to provide upskilling for school teachers so that technology readiness at schools improves, and schools provide exposure to industry relevant technology and AI tools. Schools can also start used smart phone libraries to lend smart phones to girl students and also introduce STEM education competitions for girls.

Third – and finally – there is a need to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM in mass media – so that they can stand out as role models for young women and girls.

For truly harnessing the potential of women-led development in a digital economy – India’s girls need to be empowered in digital spaces, for in today’s world, literacy doesn’t just mean being able to read and write, but to read, write, and surf.

Views expressed are personal