Bihar’s education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary on Wednesday expressed concern over slow pace of uploading of data by institutions in the state for the All India Survey for Higher Education (AISHE) and said the process needed to be speeded up in view of its importance for availing funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC) as well as securing ranking of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

The minister said the education department had directed the institutions to do it on a priority basis, as merely three out of 37 university-level higher education institutions had so far uploaded data on the AISHE portal. “The number of colleges uploading data is also less than one-third. Out of 985 colleges, just 322 have done it,” he said.

Among the university-level institutions, Lalit Narayan Mithila University (Darbhanga), IIM Gaya and Aryabhatt Knowledge University (AKU) have so far uploaded the data. Similarly, out of 52 teachers’ training institutions only 13 have done it.

The minister’s direction came as the deadline of February 28, set by the AISHE, is drawing close even as some state universities are still struggling to complete the admission process in the new session. Earlier, the State Higher Education Council (SHEC) had asked the institutions to upload data by February 10 and later extended it to February 15.

AISHE has been conducting nation-wide annual survey since 2010-11 to get an idea about the status of higher education on several basic parameters such as teachers, student enrolment, programmes, examination results, education finance, infrastructure. However, Bihar’s participation has always been very low in the survey.

The data is used to calculate and analyse various indicators, viz. institution density, Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), pupil-teacher ratio, gender parity index, per student expenditure and used for taking policy decisions.

The 2019-20 report of the AISHE, which came last year, had shown 0.9% increase in the state GER, which has remained very low at less that 14% before that. Under the new education policy, the target is to take GER to 50% nationally by 2035 for which Bihar seems way behind. Under the new rules, universities without A-grade are not entitled to run distance education and that could affect state’s GER in the coming years. Bihar does not have any A-grade state university and it will mean closure of all directorates of distance education.

The minister said that uploading of data on AISHE portal had begun and institution would avoid it at their own peril. “This will be the basis on which UGC will give funds to institutions. Besides, AISHE gives a reflection of GER and NAAC also considers it during evaluation of institutions for grading. Without AISHE data, it will become difficult for institutions to avail funds in future,” he said.

Besides, the AISHE data reflects the actual health of institutions to give the students an informed choice. “Its biggest importance is that it helps in policy formulation by assessing the infrastructure and academic needs of institutions,” said an SHEC official.

The last survey had also pointed to dearth of higher education institutions in the state despite significant increase in the last one decade. While Bihar had just seven colleges per one lakh of population, Karnataka had 59, while the national average was 30.

Bihar AISHE status so far

Institutions. No. Applied

Universities. 37. 3

Colleges. 985. 322

Teacers training. 52. 13

Nursing. 130. 30

Tech/Polytechnic. 63. 7