NITI Aayog Report on Enhancing Quality Higher Education in India

February 11, 2025

Recently, NITI Aayog released policy report titled “Expanding Quality Higher Education through States and State Public Universities”. The report focuses on State Public Universities (SPUs), which educate 80% of India’s college students. It aligns with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and aims to help India become a developed country (Viksit Bharat) by 2047.

State Public Universities

495 SPUs exist in India as of January 2025, with Karnataka having the most (43), followed by West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh (38 each).
Over the past 14 years, SPUs have grown by 50%, and student enrollment has increased by 38%, reaching 3.24 crore students.

Key Focus Areas

The report suggests 80 policy recommendations in four key areas:

Quality of Education
Funding & Finance
Governance
Employability

Quality of Education

Introduce a National Research Policy to improve research quality.
Create Centres of Excellence to solve local problems.
Establish Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs).
Encourage humanities research and innovation.
Improve teaching methods and digital learning platforms.
Partner with foreign universities for global exposure.

Funding & Finance

Increase financial autonomy for SPUs.
Set up State-level Infrastructure Finance Agencies.
Allow tax exemptions for SPUs to attract more funding.
Use CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) contributions to improve infrastructure.
Reduce operational costs by reviewing electricity and water rates for SPUs.

Governance

Formulate a State-level Higher Education Vision for 2047.
Strengthen state Higher Education Councils to function like the UGC.
Give SPUs more freedom in decision-making.
Improve the faculty recruitment process for better teaching quality.

Employability

Strengthen university-industry partnerships.
Increase internships and apprenticeships for students.
Promote entrepreneurship programs to encourage job creation.
Focus on skill development and real-world applications.

Key Findings

The report indicates that Jammu and Kashmir leads in education spending as a percentage of GDP, while states like Delhi and Telangana allocate less. The disparity in funding across states is alarming, with some states recording negative growth rates in higher education expenditure.

Implementation Strategies

The report outlines short, medium, and long-term strategies for implementing its recommendations. It identifies responsible actors for each recommendation and suggests over 125 performance indicators to measure success. The emphasis is on improving research quality, pedagogy, and industry-academia collaboration.

Financial

The report reveals that the combined expenditure on higher education is only 0.62% of GDP. It stresses the necessity of increasing this allocation to support infrastructure development and enhance the quality of education. Maharashtra leads in higher education funding, while several smaller states lag behind.

Gender and Enrolment Trends

The report marks gender disparities in enrolment rates. States like Kerala have higher female enrolment rates than males. Geographically smaller states exhibit a more balanced enrolment ratio, suggesting successful models for greater access to higher education for women.

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