Jharkhand has lowest college density in country: Study

RANCHI: Abysmally poor college-student ratio has turned out to be Jharkhand's major cause for the brain drain. The All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) data released by the Union ministry of human resource development, said the state higher education sector has been discouraging with just eight colleges per one lakh students against the national average of 28 colleges.
The lack of colleges has been one of the major reasons behind the mass outflow of students from Jharkhand into other states for higher education witnessed during the past few years, experts said.
JMM MLA Stephen Marandi told TOI, "The huge brain drain is largely due to lack of technical education institutes in the state. There also a huge scarcity of general degree colleges which is another bane for the youths of Jharkhand. Only those who can afford expensive education in private institutes venture out."
"The recent initiative of the state government to invite private universities to set up institutes in Jharkhand in the PPP mode is not going to solve the problem because the cost of education will sky rocket and currently, the level of academics is very poor," the former deputy CM, who also an educationist said.
Marandi added, "The only solution is to set up more government colleges and appoint adequate faculty members according to the UGC norms."
As far as the college density per one lakh students is concerned, Jharkhand has the lowest ranking among all states with just 307 colleges to cater to the demands of students graduating from schools here, according to AISHE 2016-17 released in January.