Campaign to promote higher education enrolment

Concerned over low enrolment rate in higher education which has dropped to 18 per cent at university level, the government intends to improve it by 2020 through an aggressive campaign, particularly targeting educationally backward districts.
Minister of State for Human Resource Development (HRD) Shashi Tharoor today said the government will launch the campaign in the form of "Rashtra Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (national higher education campaign)".
Noting that the government is concerned with the low rate of enrolment in higher education, he said the national campaign will provide incentives to states to improve institutes of higher learning.
"The objective is to improve the enrolment rate in higher education by 30 per cent by 2020," Tharoor said here at the Gen Next Workforce Summit 2013 - Capacity Building for Transformation and Innovation.

On the present enrolment ratio, he said that in primary education, the enrolment is 116 per cent but by class eight, it drops to 69 per cent. By class XI, it drops further to 39 per cent and by university level, its just about 18 per cent.
Under the campaign, the government proposes the setting up of 374 model degree college in districts which are educationally backward, Tharoor said.
The minister said the country's educational system is currently flexible and integrated taking in diverse subjects and in this regard referred to the launch of four-year undergraduate degree programmes at Delhi University.

The post graduate professional degrees too have gone through a major transformation, he said.