Karnataka leads in college density ratio: Niti Aayog report

Karnataka leads in college density ratio: Niti Aayog report

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, February 11, 2025: College density in Karnataka is the highest in India with 66 colleges per one lakh eligible population (18-23 years of age), which is more than twice the national average of 30, while Manipur, Bihar and Jharkhand are at the bottom of the pyramid, as per data released by NITI Aayog on Monday.

Karnataka is also among the best performers in pupil-teacher ratio. Against the national average of 23 it stood at 15 in Karnataka. Tamil Nadu led the rank with a pupil-teacher ratio of 14.

Tamil Nadu also leads the table in gross enrolment ratio (GER). Against the national average of 28.4 Tamil Nadu led the rank with 47 in GER. States like Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra have GERs considerably higher than the national average, NITI Aayog said in a policy report on “Expanding Quality Higher Education through States and State Public Universities”.

NITI Aayog CEO B V R Subrahmanyam said improving quality and scale at state public universities are critically important as it accounts for over 80% of higher education students in the country.

He said the central government’s target is to double the higher education enrollment from the current 4.5 crore to over 9 crore by 2047.

Nearly 7 crore of these will continue to study in SPUs. Hence, it is of utmost importance that these universities transition from focusing only on access to higher education to delivering world class higher education to create the high-quality human resource required to power the vision of becoming a Viksit Bharat by 2047, Subrahmanyam remarked at an event organised to release the report.

In the states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh pupil-teacher ratio in 2021-22 was worse than in 2011-12. “These states have experienced an increase in the number of students without a rise in the number of teachers, leading to the declining PTR. These differences reiterate the necessity for targeted policies to recruit and train more educators, especially in lagging states, to ensure equitable access to quality education,” the report noted.

As per the report, India has nearly 16 lakh teachers in higher educational institutions, with the majority (68%) being lecturers and assistant professors. Readers/associate professors represent around 10% of the total faculty, followed by professors & equivalent at 9.5%, demonstrators/tutors at 6%, temporary teachers at 5.7%, and visiting teachers at 0.8%.

Larger states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra have a balanced distribution across senior and junior faculty. States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have a higher concentration of teachers in junior positions.