Eternal India Encyclopedia

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EDUCATION

HIGHER EDUCATION

The Central Government discharges its duty of co-ordinating and establishing standards in higher education (a subject which figures in the Union list) through the University Grants Commission set up in 1953 . There are 12 Central universities - Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh; University of Delhi, Delhi; University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, Indira Gandhi Open University, New Delhi; North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong; Viswabharati, Shantiniketan; Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi; Pondicherry University; Assam Central University and Nagaland Central University. The five Indian Institutes of Technology at Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Delhi conduct undergraduate programmes as well as Master's courses and PhD programmes in Engineering, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences. There are 17 Regional Engineering Colleges set up by the Central Government, one in each of the major states. There are 180 engineering colleges and 425 polytechnics offering diplomas with an annual intake of 34,000 and 65,000 respectively. Business administration is a relatively new discipline in India. The four Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Bangalore and Lucknow together with the Xavier Labour Relations Institute at Kharagpur offer a two-year course leading to a diploma. About 75 per cent of the total expenditure on universities and colleges is met by the Central and State Governments; with the States contributing more than 80 per cent of the total expenditure. The remaining portion is financed from fees, endowments and philanthropic contributions. The UGC which is mainly responsible for maintenance of standards of higher education and co-ordination of university activities provides funds for the maintenance and development of Central universities and, to some extent, the Deemed Universities, also. The Institutions of National Importance, like the IITs are directly funded by the Department of Education of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. There has been a phenomenal growth in the size of the system of higher education since Independence. The number of universities shot up from 28 in 1950-51 to 144 in 1988-89. The total number of universities all over the country now is 211. In addition there are now 27 institutions which are classified as "Deemed to be universities". Along with the increase in the number of universities the number of affiliated and constituent colleges has also increased from 695 in 1950-51 to 6,912 in 1988-89. Enrolment in higher education has risen from 1,74,000 in 1950-51 to 40,00,000 in 1988- 89. The annual compounded growth rate in enrolment from 1950-51 to 1960-61 was 12.4 and from 1960-61 to 1970-71 it was 13.4. The growth rate from 1970-71 to 1980-81 declined to 3.5. From 1980-81 to 1988-89 it was 4.7. The significantly lower rates during the Seventies and Eighties may be due to the adoption of the 10+2+3 pattern of education. Corrective mechanisms were set in motion during the Fourth Plan period when post-graduate and research sectors were given higher priority. In keeping with the rapid expansion in the number of institutions and the size of enrolment, there has been an expansion in the strength of the faculty. The number of teachers in higher education is nearly 2,40,000. The number of teachers in affiliated colleges has grown at a faster rate than that of the faculty in

university departments or colleges because of the large number of affiliated colleges coming up in the private sector. There has been a mismatch between enrolment and faculty growth rates. While the enrolment in 1985-89 was 22 times that of 1950-51 the corresponding increase in teaching staff was only 11 times. As against an average growth rate of 8.5 per cent per annum for enrolment, the corresponding figure for faculty size was only 6.5 per cent. Consequently, the number of students per teacher in an affiliated college increased 1.5 times from 12 in 1964 to 17 in 1988. The tertiary level of education in India is divided into a three-year undergraduate stage, a two-year post-graduate stage and three- year plus stage of research programmes leading to a doctoral degree. The share of undergraduates to total enrolment in 1950-51 was 83.7 per cent, the post-graduate component was 11.5 per cent and research was 0.83 per cent. In 1988-89, the respective figures were 88 per cent, 9.5 and 1.10. Quantitatively enrolment at the undergraduate level went up 24 times from 145,389 in 1950-51 to 34,74,171 while post-graduate enrolment increased by 18 times from 20,000 in 1950-51 to 3,80,000 in 1988-89. Enrolment at the research level during this period went up thirty times from 1,400 to 43,400.

Decennial growth rate of stage-wise enrolment

(1950-51 to 1989-90)

Period Undergraduate

Post-graduate

Research

1950-51 to 1960-61 12.5

11.4

13.0

1960-61 to 1970-71 14.0

10.6

10.6

1970-71 to 1980-81 3.2

5.4

9.2

1980-81 to 1989-90 4.7

4.0

3.8

The above table indicates the sharp drop in the undergraduate level from the highpoint of 14.0 per cent it had reached in the Sixties, the period of the college boom and the stabilisation of the growth rate around 4 per cent at all the three stages during the Eighties. Coming to the faculty-wise enrolment in higher education, the Arts faculty occupies a dominant position in 1988-89 with 40.3 per cent, followed by Commerce with 21.5 per cent and Science 19.7 per cent. Other figures are Engineering Technology 4.6, Medicine 3.6, Education 2.3, Agriculture 1.3, Law 5.8 and Veterinary Sciences 0.3. After occupying the third position behind Arts and Science till 1978- 79, Commerce moved to the second place in 1979-80 and has held that position since then. The low level of enrolment in the agricultural and veterinary sciences is a distressing feature of the higher education scene in view of the dominant position of agriculture in the Indian economy and the fact that India has the largest cattle population in the world. "Considering the faculty-wise distribution and the growth of enrolment of higher education as a whole the conclusion is inescapable that even after four decades of planned development, the distortions introduced during colonial times have continued to persist even though significant changes have taken place in the structure of the economy and the composition of the GNP. This disequilibrium is a matter of serious concern for policymakers and