Out of College: State of Higher Education in India
One essential part of looking at big shifts in India has got to be patience. We're going to have to learn to walk before we learn to run. We cannot, for instance, expect everyone to be writing code when only two in ten adults know how to use a computer. So too with education, I was willing to accept that while India has made big gains at the basic level, there's still a long way to go with higher education. Even so, just how long a way we have to go came as something of a surprise to me.
One transformative big shift in education, and something I talked about in a previous edition ("The (Un)Lettered"), is the big increase in literacy, and the closing of the gender gap in literacy among younger people. Another big one is the steady rise in enrolment in elementary education (primary and upper primary, or grades one to eight) to a point now where virtually every child under the age of 14 is in school. Growth in enrolment in higher education has been much slower.
Photo: Rukmini S., Data For India
Even today, just over one in ten Indians has a higher education (which includes graduate and post-graduate degrees, or any equivalent programme after the higher secondary level), my colleague Abhishek Waghmare finds in his work for us on the educational levels of Indians.
And this isn't purely the legacy of lower levels of enrolment in higher education in older generations; just one in five Indians in their late twenties today have pursued a higher education programme. Levels of higher education attainment are lower still in rural areas and among people from marginalised communities, Abhishek finds. In Bihar and Assam, he finds, fewer than 5% of women have completed a higher education programme.
This places enrolment in higher education in India well below the world average, Abhishek finds.
Photo: Rukmini S., Data For India
"In the early 1990s," he writes, "India's higher education enrolment rates were similar to those of China, for instance. But in the two decades since, China has made big strides, and more than seven in ten young Chinese adults are now in higher education, as compared to three out of ten Indian young adults."
It isn't just about competing with China, of course. Apart from the opportunity for the expansion of the mind that a higher education gives, we find, for instance, that salaried jobs (which pay better) are much more likely to go to those with a higher education. Across health and development indicators, a higher education degree correlates strongly with better outcomes.
This is undoubtedly a story of improvement over time, as you will see in all the charts in this newsletter. But it isn't yet a big shift, and, perhaps, this is an area where we cannot afford to be patient - we may need to get running, and soon.
This article was republished under a Creative Commons licence from Data for India. Read the original here.
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