KARACHI: The number of women enrolling for higher education has increased from 32 per cent in 2001 when the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan was set up to 48 per cent today, its Chairman Prof Dr Mukhtar Ahmad said while addressing students at the Hamdard University Wednesday.

The HEC chief said that the women entering higher education were overwhelmingly enrolled in medicine, education home economics and biological sciences, which has also changed.

“Our first challenge was to increase the equality and access,” he said before revealing that 48% of those enrolled are women while 52 per cent are men.

He added that women were also focusing on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which wasn’t the case in the past. “They are joining astronomy, IT and almost every other field.”

Hamdard University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Syed Shabibul Hasan, while welcoming engineers, scholars and researchers at the event, felicitated the organisers for promoting women in engineering. He said it was in line with the vision of the university’s founder, the late Hakim Mohammed Said.