Women Enrolment In Abu Dhabi's Higher Education Rises 8.2% Annually

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 29th Aug, 2019) The number of female students enrolled in higher education in Abu Dhabi witnessed an average annual increase of 8.2 percent, according to data released from the Statistics Centre-Abu Dhabi, SCAD.

The data from the fifth edition of the book titled 'Emirati Women between the Past and the Present' revealed that the number of female enrolment increased from 16,619 in 2008 to 28,987 in 2018.

The rate of female students who enrolled in higher education in 2017 was 206.6 for 100 male students. The total number of students in the 2016-2017 academic year amounted to 165,631, of which 49.8 percent were female students.

The figures also highlighted the fact that the number of female students enrolling in Abu Dhabi’s public schools was higher than private schools, accounting for 67.2 percent. Female students represented 53 percent of students in public schools.

In the 2016-2017 academic year, female teachers mad up 90 percent of the 4,379 teachers registered in the emirate.

Due to the government’s support for education, the literacy rate of ten-year-old girls recorded a 5.1 percent increase, from 89.8 percent in 1970 to 94.9 percent in 2016.

Information from the centre revealed that the number of female citizens living in Abu Dhabi increased 60 fold from 1960 to 2018, accounting for 49 percent of the total population.

The data also showed that the age distribution of Emirati women in Abu Dhabi was characterised by a bias towards younger age groups, with 37.2 percent being under the age of 15, while the proportion of females between the ages of 15 and 64 was around 60.4 percent.

The average life expectancy of women also increased to 81.4 in 2018, said the SCAD data.