At 36% gross enrolment ratio, Goa long way from NEP's 50% target

Time of India

28-04-2025

Representative Image
Panaji:
Goa's gross enrolment ratio (GER) at the higher education level is 35.8% — 36% for males and 35.5% for females — according to the latest All India Survey on Higher Education, 2021-22. There has been an increase of only around one per cent in the 18-24 age group over the previous year. Though this is much higher than the national average of 28.4%, the state still has a big gap to fill.
The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, mandates that the state has to achieve 50% GER in higher education by 2035.
In states like Tamil Nadu, the ratio is already as high as 47%.
Former Goa University registrar, Vijayendra Kamat, said Goa is yet to carry out a detailed study on the dropout rate at the secondary and higher secondary level, which will be crucial to bringing more students to the higher education sector.
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'Goa is a small state with a limited number of students. There is a huge drop in students who manage to transition from the primary level to the secondary level and thereon to the higher secondary level. Though it is improving as per govt, it is not sufficient to fill the gap. Whatever planning they have followed so far does not seem to be realistic to catch up to the 50% GER target,' said Kamat.
Unless Goa strengthens the base, it will not be able to cover the gap in the GER, he said.
'Those in the administration only try to paint a rosy picture. What steps have been taken to understand the dropout rate? Is there any serious document prepared in last 15-20 years? Even the courses being introduced are those where there is opportunity for college to make money. Programmes are coming up in branches that are economically attractive,' Kamat said.
Former state director of higher education, Bhaskar Nayak, said Goa has different sociological realities that cannot be understood only statistically.
'In Goa, many students prefer to do courses like hotel management after Class X and go abroad and onboard cruise ships to work. They find employment and add to Goa's foreign remittances. So it is not so bad if they are not upping the GER. If you do a degree programme and your GER goes up, but if the students do not find employment here, what is there to be proud of that GER?' said Nayak.
He said around 500 engineering seats in Goa go vacant annually, while some general stream seats too do not get filled. Pointing to a recent
TOI
report, Nayak said that school mathematics teachers were seen scoring as low as four marks in a test taken by a Class X student.
'These are the issues that need to be looked into rather than the GER alone. Many private universities are going to start in Goa. We have to see if they will go in for disruption by offering the same courses as colleges in the state by giving local students a fee subsidy. Then, the GER will not go up but students will only be shifting around. If they manage to attract students from outside in large numbers, our GER will go up. Again, it will not be a proud moment for Goa as these will not be local students,' said Nayak.
He said that in states like Tamil Nadu, the GER is partly higher due to many institutes, like Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), that attract a large number of students from outside the state.