This is crucial data

Updated on: Monday, January 30, 2012

The All India Survey on Higher Education initiated by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development is expected to create an authentic database on this sector in the country.

Efforts are on to collect information on various aspects related to the sector, as part of the initiative. The Ministry had earlier pointed out that the existing information was inadequate and out of date. Collection and dissemination of data suffered from incomplete coverage and an inordinate time lag.

The survey will identify and capture details of all institutions of higher learning in the country, besides collecting data from the universities and colleges on various aspects of higher education. The survey is being conducted under the overall guidance of a task force having representatives from the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education, the Medical Council of India, the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, the Central Statistical Organisation, universities, and the State higher education departments.

In a recent interview to The Hindu-EducationPlus in Kochi, UGC Chairman Ved Prakash had said that the survey would be of immense help while formulating policies in the higher education sector. “Today we do not know exactly how many are enrolled. There is a no mechanism to update information. We should be able to know it at the click of a mouse. We should be able to know how many are enrolled in science and technology, humanities, and social sciences like we have in the school sector,” he said.

Prof. Prakash said the findings of the survey would help in giving a proper direction to the education sector and planning for its development. “That will help us in proper manpower planning. We need to know how many doctors and engineers we need in 10 to 15 years. And then we would see whether we have the capacity to produce those many doctors and engineers. The Ministry has already initiated the exercise of creating a database. The survey seeking data from individual institutions has already begun.”

The Ministry is collecting data on the basic details of the institutions; teachers; non-teaching staff; programmes conducted under various faculty, schools and departments, and centres; students enrolled in these programmes; the examination result of the terminal year of each programme; and financial information such as receipt and expenditure under various heads. The information about colleges and faculty will be made available to the public.

The Ministry hopes that the data generated through the survey will help the ongoing efforts to increase the gross enrolment ratio (GER) to 30 per cent by 2020.

This is crucial data

More Education news