Gurugram: Haryana is lagging behind other states when it comes to higher education, even in its immediate neighbourhood, the latest NITI Aayog report on Expanding Quality Higher Education through State Public Universities (SPUs) has shown. The report highlights key trends in education funding, ranking, and enrolment across states.
Released Monday by NITI Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery, the report underscored Haryana’s stagnation in university rankings and its underperformance compared to some other states, though many of its neighbouring states like Punjab, and Rajasthan did not perform much better. Himachal Pradesh, however, is better placed than Haryana in some aspects.
The report found Haryana laggard in rankings, gross enrolment ratio (GER), density of higher education institutions, number of faculties and funding compared to the GSDP. It used data from 2021-2022 for ranking universities on most parameters.
Mahabir Jaglan, a retired professor from Haryana’s Kurukshetra University, said it was no surprise that the Niti Aayog report ranked Haryana low on the status of higher education for the years 2011-2012 to 2021-2022.
“Higher education doesn’t seem to be on the priority list of the Haryana government for over a decade. Its proportionate budgetary allocation to this sector remains low in comparison to the neighbouring states,” Jaglan told ThePrint. “In fact, two years ago the Haryana government even proposed to replace grant-in-aid to state public universities by a loan that was to be repaid to the government in the long term. Interestingly, the motive of the government was stated to make institutions of higher education self-reliant. Fortunately, saner sense prevailed and this proposal was shelved.”
The impact was also being felt with the University Grants Commission (UGC) over the last decade ending grant-in-aid for state public universities and colleges. Previously, he said, these institutes used to get financial aid for research and faculty development through Five Year Plan (FYP) and annual allocations.
He emphasised that the state lagged behind other states in GER in higher education and the situation further worsened during post-COVID-19 period. This period has witnessed decline in GER and increase in dropout in higher education.
Jaglan said that because of fewer prospects of employment after higher education, many students prefer enrollment in the so-called non-attending institutions and courses and to prepare for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or other such examinations to migrate to western countries for jobs.
Consequently, a large number of seats in many courses and colleges have remained vacant in Haryana during the last two years.
The Niti Aayog report said that Haryana also had a lower density of higher education than neighbouring states. But the bigger concern is the quality of higher education delivered by these institutions, he added.
Jaglan said that a large number of teachers are not employed on a regular basis. The teachers on contract basis are very lowly paid and many of them are not even qualified for the job. These institutions have hardly any facilities for research and lack in science laboratories. The report does not seem to have taken into account these aspects of quality education.
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What the report said
The Niti Aayog report noted that Haryana failed to place any state public university in the top 100 institutions ranked by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2024. This marks a decline compared to 2016 when the state at least had a presence in the rankings.
In contrast, Punjab, which had a higher presence in 2016, has also seen a decline in the performance of its SPUs. Himachal Pradesh has managed to maintain a relatively stable position, benefiting from consistent governance in higher education, the report said.
In the NIRF rankings for 2024, two private universities from Haryana—Maharishi Markandeshwar (Deemed to be University) (rank 71) and Manav Rachna Faridabad (82)—figured in the top 100. No state university could find a place.
Two state universities from Haryana—Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, (96) and Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, (99) figured in the top 100 in the NIRF rankings in 2023.
In contrast, 7 universities from Punjab (state and private), and three from Rajasthan figured in the top 100 in the 2024 NIRF rankings.
Nationwide, Tamil Nadu has 22 of its universities in the top 100, Karnataka 11, Maharashtra 10, Uttar Pradesh 9 and Andhra Pradesh has five of its universities among the top 100 in the NIRF list for 2024.
In contrast, not a single university from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Bihar figure in the top 100 universities.
More targeted policy needed
The Niti Aayog report highlighted that Haryana allocated Rs 3,682 crore to higher education in 2020-2021, which accounted for 17.75 percent of its total education budget. However, this translated to just 0.49 percent of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP).
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh allocated Rs 874 crore, which, while lower in absolute terms, accounted for 5.37 percent of its education spending and 0.56 percent of its GSDP. To be sure, Himachal Pradesh is a much smaller state than Haryana.
Punjab allocated Rs 1,283 crore but spent only 8.5 percent of its total education budget on higher education which translates to just 0.24 percent of the GSDP.
Rajasthan, with Rs. 2,307 crore allocated, spent 3.8 percent of its total education budget, similar to Haryana, but a lower percentage of its GSDP at 0.23 percent.
This data showed that while Haryana spends more in absolute terms than Himachal Pradesh, its budget allocation as a share of GSDP is lower, raising concerns about the state’s commitment to strengthening higher education institutions.
Among the other states that spent much more as a percentage of their GSDP were Bihar (1.56 percent), Jammu and Kashmir (1.53 percent), Manipur (1.45 percent), Meghalaya (1.33 percent), Mizoram (1.18 percent), Goa (1.12 percent), Assam (0.92 percent) and Jharkhand (0.75 percent), the Niti Aayog report said.
The student enrolment figures further highlighted Haryana’s standing among its neighbours. The state recorded 11.05 lakh students enrolled in higher education institutions in 2021-2022, with a near-equal gender ratio of 5.42 lakh male students to 5.62 lakh female students.
Punjab had 8.59 lakh students enrolled, with a similar, nearly equal gender ratio.
Himachal Pradesh had 3.2 lakh students, with female student enrolments outpacing male student enrolments.
Rajasthan, a much larger state, recorded 26.89 lakh enrolments, more than double Haryana’s figure.
Haryana’s enrolment rate remains moderate, but the report suggests that a more targeted policy to expand higher education access, particularly in rural areas, is needed to compete with other northern states.
With Pupil Teachers Ratio (PTR) of 22, Haryana is much below States like Tamil Nadu (14) and Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab at 15, but the state is still ahead of the national average of 23, according to the report.
The report also flags Haryana’s relatively low density of SPUs and affiliated colleges. While Haryana has 54 colleges per SPU, Punjab has 83, and Rajasthan leads with 150, indicating a stronger higher education network in these states.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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