Steps towards greater development India’s expanding higher education sector
Steps towards greater development India’s expanding higher education sector
Published on :- August 5th, 2024
India's vast and diverse higher education landscape is anchored by prestigious institutions like IITs and IIMs. The nation’s network of universities and colleges contributes significantly to the global education sector. According to QS World University Rankings for Asia 2024, India has the highest representation of higher education institutions.
In this edition of India Data Insight’s Data Dialogue, we delve deeper into the expanding higher education sector in India, gender distribution in institutions, and variation across different states. An all-India survey of higher education is conducted every year by the Ministry of Education and a total of 1,162 Universities, 42,825 colleges, and 10,576 stand-alone institutions participated in the study in 2021-22. In this data dialogue, we are looking at the coverage of higher education in India.
According to this survey, the overall higher education landscape in India is expanding, as evidenced by the increasing number of colleges and student enrolments. Over the past six years (2016-22), the number of colleges has risen by 19.4%, while enrolment has grown by 17.9%.
Private colleges lead the sector in terms of quantity and total enrolments while government colleges have a higher student-to-college ratio. The average enrollment per college declined from 2016 to 2021, indicating a shift in distribution, an increase in newly established colleges with initially lower enrollments, or the impact of COVID-19 on student numbers. However, enrolments per college began to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2021-22.
While enrolments have been increasing, the higher education sector has maintained a relatively balanced gender distribution of 50% of the total enrolments each by 2021-22, despite slight variations in gender share over the years.
Male enrolments have consistently been high, but there has been a marginal decrease in proportion during these years. On the positive side, female enrolments have been consistently increasing in the country, reflecting the growing participation of women in higher education.
Notably, enrolments in the integrated programmes have increased threefold—from 62K in 2015-16 to 265K in 2021-2022. Both female and male enrolments showed substantial growth for these programmes, with more growth in female enrolments (384%) than male enrolments (286%).
Courses like Diploma, PhD, PG, PG diploma, and undergraduate also showed notable and varying degrees of growth in enrolment, indicating diversifying educational pursuits among students. However, enrolments in M.Phil. and Certificate courses dropped drastically by 83% and 37%, respectively.
Catering to a steady rise in the young population, an upsurge of standalone institutions has also been observed, with a 16% increase in the last five years - enrolling annually an average of 2.14M students. However, students per college in standalone institutes has seen a declining trend with only 205 students per college as of 2021-22.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka have emerged as major educational hubs, hosting over one-third (~38%) of India's recognised colleges.
The regional disparity can be attributed to the distribution of the 18-23 age group population, with approximately one-third (~32%) residing in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. However, the density of colleges per 100,000 people is higher in the southern regions, exceeding the national average of 30. This reflects substantial efforts in establishing colleges in the southern states. Conversely, Bihar and Jharkhand have the least colleges per 100,000 people despite accounting for 13% of the young population.
Overall, the student participation rate or the gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education in 2021-22 increased to 28.4, a 1.1 increase from 2020-21.
India has more male than female citizens in the relevant age groups, with 53% of the population (~1492K) belonging to males in the 18-23 age group. Over these years, female participation in higher education has grown.
In 2021-22, India’s Gender Parity Index (GPI) was 1.01, indicating a slightly higher gross enrolment rate among female students. While GER has been increasing, GPI also increased between 2019-21, however, it has returned to the same value as it was in 2017-18.
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On the other side of the spectrum are states like Assam and Bihar, with the lowest proportion of young people pursuing higher education. The GER is 16.9 in Assam and 17.1 in Bihar. Overall, the northern and central regions are lagging in student enrollment for higher education, while the southern states of India have relatively higher GER.
Some UTs like Chandigarh, Puducherry, and Delhi have the highest GER ~64.8, 61.5, and 49 and also demonstrate high female enrolment rates, indicating strong female participation in higher education.
Several states exhibit a balanced GPI equal to or greater than 1, indicating nearly equal representation of males and females in higher education. However, States like Odisha (0.88) and Tripura(0.89) have the lowest GPI values, suggesting lesser female representation in higher education than males.
India's expansive higher education system is evolving with a consistent increase in the young population, enhanced college infrastructure, and unprecedented female participation. While the number of colleges and institutes has been growing, catering to the growing demand, we believe greater impact could be achieved if these higher education institutions were located in places where the relevant population resides, thus improving accessibility, increasing enrolments, and thereby closing the gender gap.
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