HRD ministry's AISHE report says only 2.5% colleges in India run PhD programmes, maximum students opt for science stream

New Delhi: Only 2.5 per cent colleges in the country run PhD programmes and maximum students opt for Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in science stream, according to the All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE) by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry. A total of 1,69,170 students are enrolled in PhD programmes that is less than 0.5 per cent of the total student enrolment. [caption id=“attachment_5077771” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. AFP[/caption] For the annual survey, the higher education institutions are categorised in 3 broad categories—university, college and stand-alone institutions. A total of 962 universities, 38,179 colleges and 9190 stand-alone institutions participated in the survey for the year 2018-19. Only 2.5 per cent colleges run PhD programme and 34.9 percent colleges run post graduate-level programmes. At PhD level, maximum numbers of students out-turn is in science stream followed by engineering and technology. On the other hand at PG level maximum students out-turn is observed in social science and management stream comes at number two, according to the survey report. The share of PhD.student is highest in State Public University (34.3 percent) followed by Institute of National Importance (21.6 percent), Deemed University-Private (21.6 percent) and State Private University (13.4 percent). The AISHE report pointed out that about 79.8 percent of students are enrolled in undergraduate level programme. “Maximum numbers of students are enrolled in Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme followed by Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) programmes. At Undergraduate level the highest number (35.9 percent) of students are enrolled in arts, humanities or social sciences courses followed by science (16.5percent), engineering and technology (13.5 percent) and commerce (14.1 percent), the report said. There are 34.8 percent colleges, which run only single programme, out of which 83.1 percent are privately managed. Among these privately managed colleges, only 38.1 percent colleges run Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) courses . 77.8 percent colleges are privately managed, 64.3 percent private-unaided and 13.5 percent private-aided. Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have about 88 percent private-unaided colleges and Tamil Nadu has 87 percent private-unaided colleges, whereas, Assam has 16 percent. “Around 16.3 per cent of colleges are having enrolment less than 100 and only 4 percent colleges have enrolment more than 3000,” the report said.