New Delhi: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has decided to begin a huge survey on the state of higher education in India. The initiative is taken because of the shortage of information that is available about the subject. The main aim of the survey will be to collect and provide reliable information regarding higher education in the country. The survey would be covering all public and private institutions of higher education.
As per sources, the ministry has assigned the task of conducting the survey to the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA). The survey will be completed in one year's time. According to the statement of an official from the ministry the higher education sector in India has been marred with a lack of reliable data, which has hindered the implementation of policy initiatives that are required. The official also added that the information on Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) does not get updated properly keeping in mind the increasing intervention of the private sector in higher education.
Besides, the decision to carry out the huge task of conducting the survey was taken by a task force that was headed by a senior official from the HRD ministry. The collection of the data will begin in a short period and the NUEPA will be seeking assistance for the survey from educational institutions throughout the country. The institutions to be surveyed would include universities, deemed universities, institutions of national importance and other institutes of university level, general and professional/technical such as medical, engineering, dental, veterinary, computer, management, agriculture, pharmacy, law, teacher training, etc.
In addition, other institutions that would also be included in the survey are colleges and institutes that offer post secondary education like polytechnics and industrial training institutes. The HRD ministry official said that the survey of the institutions would give the government a clearer perspective about the higher education sector in India. The exercise will be based loosely upon the model of survey of elementary education that is conducted by the NUEPA every year.
Furthermore, the official added that once the ministry had a basic data of the higher education in the country, it had planned to update the information on an annual basis the way that it is done for elementary education. Moreover, the information that will be collected in the survey would include data on the basic profile of institutions like management, affiliation status, courses offered, income and expenditure, enrollment, faculty, etc.
