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Bihar plans PG teaching in every district
PATNA After announcing its plan to open higher secondary schools in every panchayat and a degree college in every subdivision, the Bihar government now plans start post-graduate teaching in at least one college in each district, education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said on Friday
PATNA
After announcing its plan to open higher secondary schools in every panchayat and a degree college in every subdivision, the Bihar government now plans start post-graduate teaching in at least one college in each district, education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said on Friday.
The move comes in view of growing demand and the need to boost the gross enrolment ratio (GER), which continues to be very low in the state at 14.4, nearly half the national average.
Choudhary said the government would welcome proposals from interested colleges if they are routed through the universities concerned with their recommendation and give them nod on a priority basis.
“There have been a lot of demands in this regard to chief minister Nitish Kumar as well as to the education department,” he said.
The minister said his department recently got proposals from two districts for starting PG education — one at BSS College (Supaul) and another at KKM College (Jamui). “We have decided to give approval. There are 10 districts where PG teaching is not available in any college. If the proposals come from the remaining eight districts through a proper channel, we will certainly like to approve them. With incentives, girls’ enrolment has increased manifold at the secondary, higher secondary and graduation level and they need institutions nearby to go further,“ he said.
However, the task is not easy, considering the low number of colleges per lakh population in the state, huge vacancies, poor grading by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) due to lack of proper infrastructure. The shortage of teachers is particularly acute in places away from main towns and the efforts to rope in guest teachers has not been very successful. Besides, the academic sessions continue to be late in most universities. Even in the universities where PG teaching is on, the semester system is not fully in place while at the undergraduate level, it is totally missing in state universities.
As per the 2019 report of the All India Survey for higher education (AISHE), Bihar still has just seven colleges per lakh population with an average enrolment of 1,703, while the number of colleges per lakh population in Andhra Pradesh is 51, Karnataka (59), Kerala (48), Rajasthan (37), Maharashtra (34), 31 in Gujarat and UP and 30 in West Bengal with much lower average enrolment.
The minister said those colleges where Honours level education was on and the teacher-pupil ratio was 1:30 could start PG teaching. “For further creation of posts at the PG level, the government will go by the recommendation of the competent authority,” he said.
