Bihar plans post-graduate teaching in every district

After going ahead with its plan to open higher secondary schools in every panchayat and degree college in every sub-division, the Bihar government now plans to go ahead with its move to start post-graduate teaching in at least one college in each district

After going ahead with its plan to open higher secondary schools in every panchayat and degree college in every sub-division, the Bihar government now plans to go ahead with its move to start post-graduate teaching in at least one college in each district.

Image for representation. (Shutterstock)

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 of the national average.

Education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said that the government would welcome such proposals from interested colleges if they are routed through the concerned universities with their recommendation and give them go ahead on a priority basis.

Choudhary said that chief minister Nitish Kumar’s focus was on increasing the GER in higher education and therefore, the government worked in a planned manner to phase-wise scale up educational institutions, starting with the opening of higher secondary schools in every panchayat and degree colleges in every sub-division.

“The results are now coming and at least one post-graduate college in every district will be in tune with the progress. There have been a lot of demands in this regard to the CM as well as the education department,” he added.

The minister said that the department 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 added.

However, it will not be easy considering the fewer number of colleges per lakh population in the state, huge vacancies, poor NAAC grading due to lack of proper infrastructure, teaching and research, and high enrolment of students, which results in a lack of academic atmosphere on campuses. The shortage of teachers is particularly acute in places away from main towns and the efforts to rope in guest teachers in accordance with the UGC guidelines 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 despite UGC guidelines, 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 1703, while the number of colleges per lakh population in Andhra Pradesh is 51, 59 in Karnataka, 48 in Kerala, 37 in Rajasthan, 34 in Maharashtra, 31 in Gujarat and UP and 30 in West Bengal with much lower average enrolment.

The minister said that 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 added.