Punjab ranks top in student enrollment: Assocham

Punjab has ranked top in terms of growth in student enrollment, followed by Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir, says an Assocham study.
"Punjab has emerged as the leader with a CAGR of about eight per cent in terms of growth in student enrollment between 2007-08 and 2013-14, followed by Haryana (five per cent) and Gujarat (three per cent)," according to the chamber's study titled 'States Emergence: A comparative analysis of growth & development.'
Student enrollment grew at just over one per cent CAGR across India during the aforesaid period, it added.
Punjab has also registered highest growth rate of about 20 per cent CAGR during 2007-08 and 2013-14 as the number of teachers in the state have increased from about 79,750 to over 2.36 lakh in this period.

"In terms of education development, challenge remains of providing equal opportunities for quality education to ever growing number of students reinvigorating institutions, crossing international benchmarks of excellence and extending the frontiers of knowledge," said Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat.
"There is an urgent need to increase investments to develop human capital needed to meet those challenges," said Rawat.

"Merely increasing the number of higher educational institutions and their enrollment capacity will not achieve national developmental goals without concurrent attention to quality and its access to all those who desire it," he added.
"Developing a rural education policy which is result oriented in respect of funding educational institutes and teachers, which may help in improving efficiency of teaching faculty, which would ultimately improve overall competency of rural students and provide incentives to private colleges, professional institutes, and other vocational institutions to set up facilities in rural and backward areas may result in better enrollment rates," further said Rawat.

"Punjab's performance in terms of students per teacher has also improved remarkably as from a level of 32 students per teacher in 2007-08, it has improved to 17 students per teacher in 2013-14.
"However, the state is ranked fourth in this regard after Himachal Pradesh (11 students per teacher), J&K (12 students per teacher) and Kerala (15 students per teacher)," the study added.