Almost 80% of Indian colleges privately managed, says government

NEW DELHI: About 79% of colleges in the country are privately managed, with 13% getting some kind of government aid, the all-India survey on higher education (AISHE) by the union education ministry showed Thursday.

“Majority of the colleges (78.6%) in the country, are privately managed – (while) 65.2% are private unaided & 13.4% are private aided. The remaining 21.4% are government colleges. There are wide variations among states in number of private colleges,” the annual education survey showed.

There are 1,043 universities, 42,343 colleges and 11,779 standalone institutions including engineering and business schools in the country, catering to over 38 million students.

Most of these colleges are small in terms of enrolment, with 16.6% of such institutions having an enrolment of less than 100, and 48.9% having strength of 100-500 students. This means that at least 65.5% of the colleges in the country enrol less than 500 students. A minuscule 4% have more than 3,000 students enrolled.

At least 32.6% colleges run only one programme, of which 84.1% are privately managed. Among these privately managed colleges, 37.4% offer only B.Ed. courses.

The total number of students enrolled for Arts courses number 9.65 million, of which 52.9% are female. Science is the second major stream, with 4.75 million students and again a majority 51.7% are female students. Commerce is the third major stream with 4.16 million students enrolled, with more male students opting for the courses than female students (48.8%).

But if one takes the individual courses, “it may be seen that percentage share of male is higher than female in almost every level, except in courses like M.Phil. Student enrolment at under-graduate level has 50.8% male and 49.2% female. Diploma has a skewed distribution with 65.1% male and 34.9% female. Ph.D. level has 55% male and 45% female," according to the survey.