In what looks to be a shocking development for Odisha, the State in 2017-18 had a whopping 36.08lakh youth aged 18-23 years who were out of the higher education loop in Odisha.
For which, Odisha’s total youths enrolled in higher education are around 2.7 per cent of total youths enrolled nationally. But the State’s youth population accounted for over 3 per cent of country’s youth populace.
Higher education (courses taken after 10+2) in Odisha seems to be out of bounds for such a vast number of youths when the disconcerting fact is colleges per lakh youth population in State remained stagnant at 23 in last eight years.
Odisha’s Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) in higher education has, though, increased to 22 per cent in 2017-18 from 16 in 2010-11, the overall GER nationally stood higher at around 26 per cent. For Scheduled Castes (SC), the GER was also improved to 18.8 per cent and it was 12.5 per cent for Scheduled Tribes (ST).
National averages for SC and ST are 21.8 per cent and 15.9 per cent, respectively. Despite higher female enrolment, the gender parity (female per 100 male students) recorded a fall for SC and ST during the period of 2010-18.
But the important fact is enrolment of OBC female students in Odisha declined to 95,617 in 2017-18 vis-a-vis of 98,840 in 2016-17.
Such diabolic demographic facts with huge repercussions have come to the fore in the report All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2017-18 released on Friday.
An analysis throws the significant fact of how higher education in Odisha is mostly dominated by private sector and how this high scale of privatisation in Odisha looks proving a dampener for such high proportion of students for whom higher education has become now inaccessible.
Reason: Odisha has mere 330 Government colleges vis-a-vis over 700 private colleges. In Odisha private colleges have an enrolment of 65 per cent and they account for 68 per cent of total colleges. Enrolment in Government colleges in Odisha is around 35 per cent, when they account for around 32 per cent of the total higher education colleges.
The evolving messy scenario in higher education system in State was also to fore when the AISHE 2017-18 revealed a decline in PTR (Pupil-Teacher Ratio) to 28 in 2017-18 from 21 in 2010-11.
The PTR in universities also have deteriorated to 35 in 2017-18 from 22 in 2010-11. This shows teacher numbers are on decline in Odisha, when enrolment is inching up slowly.
Data reveals Odisha having fewer readers/associate professors and lecturers/assistant professors in 2017-18 than in 2011-12.
When around 5,719 readers/associate professors were in Odisha in 2011-12, the number in 2018-19 was 3,594. Similarly, lecturers/assistant professors in 2017-18 were around 25,438 vis-a-vis 26,562 in 2011-12.
Not only teachers, number of colleges has declined to 1,042 in 2017-18 from 1,089 in 2010-11.
Nationally, a whopping 6,076 colleges were added in between the period 2010-18.
In Odisha, very fewer students go for PG diploma as they constitute mere 0.1 per cent of total enrolment. Student enrolments in PG diplomas have declined after 2014-15 in Odisha. Certificate courses too recorded a fall in enrolment in 2017-18 vis-a-vis 2016-17.