In this season of celebrating toppers and staggering cut-offs in college admissions across the country, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has come up with a startling admission: Over half of the students who pass Class XII don’t even enter the higher-education sector; 90 per cent of colleges and 68 per cent of universities across the country are of middling or poor quality. On almost all indicators, from faculty standards to library facilities, from computer availability to student-teacher ratio, higher education is in crying need for an upgrade.

The “quality gap” in both universities and colleges is alarming: 25 per cent faculty positions in universities remain vacant; 57 per cent teachers in colleges do not have either an M Phil or PhD; there is only one computer for 229 students, on an average, in colleges.

These results of the first-ever official assessment of the higher education system, conducted by UGC’s Bangalore-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), have been presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by HRD Minister Arjun Singh. The assessment was conducted on 123 universities and 2,956 colleges across India — an estimated 60% of these institutions were private, the rest government-run.

Institutions participated on a voluntary basis. It was based on seven broad parameters: curriculum, teaching, research and consultancy, infrastructure, student support, management and innovative practices.

The data acquire extra significance given the boom in the higher education sector and the exponential rate of growth expected. The number of universities has risen from 20 in 1947 to 378 in 2006; colleges, from 500 to 18,064 during the same period. And yet, “little more than half, 52.61 per cent, of those who passed the 12th standard get into colleges and universities, the other half drops out,” said UGC chairman Sukhdeo Thorat.

... contd.