New Delhi, July 29: Minority students account for nearly a fifth of all schoolchildren in India and their share has been climbing every year — but by the time students reach college and university, that share shrinks to barely one in thirteen, according to data placed before the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
The figures, furnished by the Ministry of Education and tabled by Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju in response to a starred question from MP R. Sachithanantham, expose a sharp “funnel effect” in which gains made at the school level fail to carry through to higher education.
The school-level picture: steady, consistent growth
Drawing on UDISE+ data for the five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26, minority enrolment (an aggregate of the six notified communities — Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi and Jain) has risen at every stage of school education.
Primary: minority share rose from 18.8% in 2021-22 to 21.8% in 2025-26, even as overall Primary enrolment fell from 12.18 crore to 10.19 crore
Upper Primary: from 17.8% to 19.6%, as overall enrolment fell from 6.68 crore to 6.32 crore
Secondary: from 16.4% to 18.7%, with overall enrolment roughly flat at around 3.7–3.85 crore across the period
Higher Secondary: from 15.1% to 17.1%, with overall enrolment also broadly stable, ending marginally higher at 2.89 crore in 2025-26 than the 2.86 crore recorded in 2021-22
The pattern within each year is itself telling: minority representation declines at every successive stage of schooling — from roughly 22% at Primary down to about 17% by Higher Secondary in 2025-26 — pointing to disproportionate attrition of minority students as they move up the school system, even before they reach college.
The cliff at higher education
The steepest fall comes at the transition into higher education. As per the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), the combined share of Muslim and Other Minority Community students (Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi and Jain taken together) in total higher education enrolment was just 7.40% in 2023-24 — the latest year for which AISHE data is available — down from 7.76% in 2019-20.
That means minority representation in higher education is currently less than half its share in Higher Secondary schooling (17.1% in 2025-26), and barely a third of its share at the Primary level. In raw terms, Muslim students made up 22,52,799 of the 4,50,01,123 students enrolled in higher education institutions in 2023-24 (about 5.01%), while students from the other five minority communities together accounted for 10,79,566 (about 2.40%).
Over the five AISHE years captured in the reply, the Muslim share of higher education enrolment declined from 5.45% in 2019-20 to 5.01% in 2023-24, even as the Other Minority Communities’ share edged up slightly, from 2.30% to 2.40%, over the same period.
*”Other Minority” combines Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Parsi and Jain students.
A silver lining: women outperforming the average
One notable positive trend in the data is gender parity among minority students who do reach higher education. Female students made up 51.7% of Muslim enrolment and 52.9% of Other Minority Community enrolment in higher education in 2023-24 — both above the all-India average female share of 49.7% for that year. This has held broadly steady since 2019-20, when the equivalent figures were 50.2% and 54.4% respectively, against an overall average of 49.0%.
The bigger picture
The numbers suggest that whatever gains minority communities have made in access to schooling are not translating into access to higher education. The headline contrast is unambiguous: a community share of roughly one-fifth in schools falling to under one-thirteenth in colleges and universities.
