ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN TELANGANA: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

Education is crucial to nation building. It enlightens an individual as well as the country with knowledge and awareness and enables it to establish an effective system in a way to utilize both human and material resources to its maximum.  Higher education plays a vital role in the development of a country. Telangana state stands 2nd among all states in higher educational institutions, i.e., 1 institution per 1 lakh people. It has 24 universities, 2041 colleges, 221 HEI’s under the Telangana state government of which 123 of them are degree colleges, 53 residential colleges, 6 B.Ed. colleges and 26 medical colleges.  Despite such huge number of institutions, the education system in Telangana faces poor quality enhancement and skills development.  There are several reasons to it. Firstly, the gross enrolment ratio in Telangana is 36% in 2019-20, one of the lowest figures when compared to all other states, i.e., average 526 students per college. Only 2% of HEIs have more than 3000 student enrolment. Secondly, according to NAAC, only 11% colleges are ‘A’ grade, while 71% colleges fall in the ‘B’ grade and the remaining small size colleges either fall in the ‘C’ grade category or they have not obtained NAAC accreditation. Thirdly, most of the colleges are affiliated to universities, so the burden of regulation and management falls on the affiliated university. As the present scenario manifests the shortage of teaching faculty in the Universities, the management won’t be able to work effectively on the regulation and quality enhancement of the education system in the state.  Fourthly, due to poor quality of education, the students are unable to find employment for themselves.  The national education policy draft of 2020 provides for certain unique initiatives that can help improve the current situation and provide for better imparting of education to the youth of the state.  The policy aims at increasing GER to 50% till the year 2035, providing for a cluster-model of the higher educational institutions, providing for research and technology-based education, providing financial support for backward classes and minorities. Besides these, the higher education must also adopt for certain measures to enhance the quality of education. It must ensure the optimum use of human resources and infrastructure. It must encourage colleges to get autonomous status to relieve administrative burden from the affiliated universities. it must create such conditions for learning so that students are exposed to issues at global, national and local levels.