Mita Mukherjee
State universities faced nine percent drop in students’ enrolments in undergraduate programmes from 2016-17 to 2021- 2022, according to a recent NITI Aayog report on state of higher education in India.
The report attributed the decline to an increase in inclination among students to access alternate career and vocational opportunities and evolving employment landscapes.
“Undergraduate enrolments exhibited a robust growth rate of 22% between 2011-12 and 2016-17, but this pace decelerated to 13 % in the following five years (2016-17 to 2021-22.) This slowdown may be attributed to increasing access to alternate career paths, vocational training opportunities and evolving employment landscapes,” the report said.
Along with undergraduate programmes, postgraduate diploma courses too faced steady decline in student enrolments throughout the span of 2012 to 2022, according to the report.
It says students are less interested to pursue postgraduate diploma programmes due to limited industry demand. “Postgraduate Diploma programmes faced a consistent decline throughout the decade, with a 5% fall in enrolments between 2011-12 and 2016-17, followed by a steeper 9% drop from 2016-17 to 2021-22. This trend may signal waning interest due to limited industry demand or perceptions of diminished competitive edge compared to full-fledged postgraduate degrees”.
The policy document on Expanding Quality Higher Education through States and State Public Universities highlights another trend that shows students are showing less interest in studying skill-based diploma programmes after Class XII and instead they are opting for alternative training and certification courses outside formal higher education after clearing the Class XII board exams.
“Diploma programmes demonstrated the most dynamic enrolment trends, with a 72 % surge from 2011-12 to 2016-17, reflecting strong demand for technical or skill- based education after Class XII. However, growth moderated to 39 % in the subsequent five-year period, potentially signalling the emergence of alternative training and certification pathways outside the formal higher education system,” the report says.
However, the report says students have shown sustained interest in pursuing advanced studies after completing undergraduate courses. “Postgraduate enrolments demonstrated a steady growth of 15 % from 2011-12 to 2016-17, followed by a marginally higher rate of 16 % from 2016- 17 to 2921-22, suggesting sustained interest in advanced studies,” the report says.
Analysing student enrolment in State Public Universities vis-a-vis other types of higher education institutions, the report states that there has been a rapid expansion of private universities which is evident from the significant enrolment growth rate in such institutions.
Enrolments in private universities have soared from 2.7 lakhs in 2011-12 to 16.2 lakhs in 2021-22 which according to the report is an ” astonishing increase,” of 497 percent.
The rise of enrolment in private universities was as high as 110.3 percent between 2017 and 2022, reflecting growing prominence of private institutions in the higher education landscape, the document said.
Private deemed universities have also shown consistent growth in enrolments between 2012 and 2022. However, Central universities showed 2.5 percent decline suggesting shifts in students’ preferences and institutional capacity constraints.