Over 295,000 students enrolled in higher education institutions in UAE

The Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) announced some key statistics about higher education students in the UAE.

Its report issued on Monday highlighted the fact that the number of higher education students in the country during the 2018-2019 academic year is 295,626, including 191,887 male students accounting for 64.9 per cent, and 103,739 female students accounting for 35.1 per cent.

The report also noted that the number of students enrolled in short-term higher education is 17,410 while those enrolled in bachelor’s degrees and equivalent programmes is 241,999, those enrolled in diploma programmes is 1,656, those enrolled in master’s degree programmes is 27,423, and those enrolled in PhD programmes is 7,138.

The report then pointed out that administrative, sharia and law specialists accounted for the largest percentage of higher education students in the country, totalling 124,432 or 42.1 percent of the total, followed by engineering, industry and construction specialists totalling 66,748 students or 22.6 percent, and social sciences, journalism and information specialists with 28,485 or 9.6 per cent.

The report showed that female students registered a higher presence than males in four academic specialities, which are education with 6,291 female students compared to 1,670 male students; fine arts and humanities with 11,921 compared to 6,509; environmental sciences, agriculture and veterinary medicine with 612 compared to 292; and health and social services with 12,807 compared to 8,279.

According to the report, the number of academic personnel working in higher education institutions in the UAE amounted to 16,665 in 2018-2019 academic year, including 10,709 men and 5,956 women.

WAM