HRD points to India-China gaps across education parameters

New Delhi: Seeking ₹4,00,576 crore for the higher education sector over the next five years, the HRD ministry has highlighted the gap between India and China across several education-related parameters. such as the gross enrolment ratio (GER) and research capabilities.

In its presentation before NK Singh, chairman of the 15th Finance Commission, on Monday the ministry shared data showing that China was stealing a march on India. The ministry faces the challenge of ensuring that the “younger workforce” is well educated and trained to help boost India’s economy over the next decade as has been the case in China.

According to the data presented by the ministry, China had posted a GER of 25.65 in 2011 while India was at 22.76 during the same period. The GER is a statistical tool to determine the number of students at a particular level of education.

However, by 2017, China’s GER moved to 49.07 but India’s rose to only 27.4. In 2018, China’s GER was at 50.6 and India’s was at 28.06.

Against 111 Chinese researchers per lakh population, India cuts a sorry figure of 15 per lakh population, as per the data from the Economic Survey of India 2016-17.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation data show only 46,582 patents were filed by India as compared to the 13,81,583 by China.

Data shared from the ELSEVIER Research Intelligence 2019 report show 4.8% publications by India versus 18.6% by China. Research and innovation funding in India stood at 0.69% vis a vis 2.10% in China, as per the UNESCO 2017 report.

India’s state-wise assessments show that 14 states and 4 UTs have GER less than the national average, according to the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) report 2018-19.

Social disparity in higher education enrollment is also a challenge. Against a GER of 26.3 for the general category, it is 23 for SCs and 17.2 for STs, according to the AISHE report 2018-19.

The HRD ministry plans to push GER to 50% by 2035 through online and distance learning courses, besides reforms such as single higher education regulator, multiple entry and exit options, creating new universities and research focus at colleges.