HRD ministry to launch massive higher education survey

New Delhi: The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has decided
to launch a huge survey on the state of higher education in India,
owing to the inadequacy of information that is available about the
subject.

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.

An official from the ministry said that 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 information on Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) does not get updated
properly keeping in mind the increasing intervention of the private
sector in higher education," he said.

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 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.

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.

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.

The official further 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.

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.