India has one of the largest education networks in the world with 864 universities, 40,026 colleges and 11,669 standalone institutions spread throughout the country. India’s Higher Education System offers the country with great opportunities and new possibilities every year yet the HRD ministry has come out with surprising results including 80,000 Ghost teachers in the Indian Higher Education System in a recently released survey.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has recently started an annual web-based report called All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) to portray the status of higher education in India. Its main aim is to strengthen the official statistical system to produce Education Statistics periodically accessible with timeliness and quality with reviewing the performance of education sector and regional divergences across the country.

These surveys would be updated annually on the site: http://aishe.gov.in

THE SURVEY: A little tour into its History of Indian Higher Education System

• The HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on 5th June 2018, released the AISHE for the year 2016-2017.
• The Survey initially started in the year 2010-2011 and is a pan-based exercise on Higher Education’s status all over India.
• This survey collects data on various things. It covers parameters like teachers, student enrolments, programmes, examination results, education finance, infrastructures, etc.
• Despite a large number of Institutions in India, few of them did not respond to the survey. Its findings were based on the responses from 795 universities, 34,193 colleges and 7,496 standalone institutions.
• The number of educational institutes listed on the AISHE portal has also been increasing. This year the portal also witnessed the data being collected for teachers under the name “Gurujan”.
• The survey also ensures that the HRD is able to maintain a sound database which gets updated annually as per the information shared by the varied institutions all over India. This then will help the government in making better policies and decisions for the education sector.

 

BAD NEWS: The shockers from the survey

• The AISHE 2016-17 also listed 80,000 ghost teachers in the state and private universities who have been using various shady methods like proxy at multiple places to work as a full-term employee.
• The Aadhaar number will help them being identified and strict actions will be taken against them

Gross Enrolment Ratio: A real mediator of Indian Higher Education System

• The  Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) measures statistically the number of students enrolled in the education sector of India. The country is aiming to attain its GER to 30% in Higher Education by the year 2020.
• It is the ratio of enrolment in higher education within preferably between the age group of 18-23 years.
• Though there has been a significant growth in GER from 2010-11 from 19.4% to 25.2% in 2016-17. The proportion of students enrolled in the year 2015-16 and 2016-27 hasn’t increased dramatically.
• Tamil Nadu had the Highest GER with 46.9% while on the other hand, Bihar is at the bottom with 14.9% GER in the country.
• Six states have GER higher than the national average GER i.e 25.2 %. The states are Tamil Nadu (46.9%), Himachal Pradesh (36.7%), Kerala (34.2%), Andhra Pradesh (32.4%), Haryana (29%) and Punjab (28.6%).
• The growth rate of the  GER for the minority communities and Muslims in India has been slow.

 

Gender Parity Index: A Brighter Future for Women

• The Gender Parity Index (GPI) is the ratio of the number of females by the number of males enrolled.
• Seven States in India have been Registered as having outnumbered the men in higher education by women. These states are  Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, J&K, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Kerala.
• The GER  has improved from 0.86 to 0.94 for the corresponding period.

 

Other Achievements: Foreign students and women universities

• The Foreign intake of students in India hadn’t seen much improvement in the education sector. Yet there was a marginal improvement in the numbers in the year 2016-17 with 31,779 men and 15,796 women. Appeals are in order for more foreign universities to be let in – NITI Aayog to HRD ministry
• The highest share of students comes from the neighboring countries like Nepal (23.6 %), Afghanistan (9.3 %) and Bhutan (4.8 %).

• Also among other things, despite having just 9.3 % of colleges exclusively for girls, there are 15 exclusive women universities across 10 states.

 

Source : indiatoday | ibef