Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu clearing the air stressed that there are no plans of the state education department to merge colleges with low enrollment.
Addressing a press conference in Guwahati on Friday regarding the declining trends of Gross Enrollment Ratio in institutions of Higher Education in Assam, Ranoj Pegu stated that the department is concerned about the issue.
In a significant development, the education minister also announced that all government and non-government higher education institutions will have to mandatorily upload updated data regarding student enrollment in the All India Survey on Higher Education portal.
Pegu said, “The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in the year 2020-2021 in government and non-government higher education institutions of the state was 17 percent. On the other hand, GER in the year 2021-2022 reduced to 16 percent. Due to this, the higher education in the state is very backward.”
“There are many colleges and universities which have not submitted the relevant information due to which this situation has risen. The Assam Chief Minister had therefore suspended the salaries of several teachers. 65 educational institutions had not submitted the GER data,” Pegu added.
He further stated that all institutions are submitting the data and the finance department has been informed about this. Therefore the salaries of teachers have been released, added Ranoj Pegu.
The Assam Education Minister also clarified that the government has not taken decision to shut any college.
He said, “The education department has proposed a cluster system instead of merging colleges. In the cluster system, few neighbouring colleges will be included. As a result of this, the students can avail additional courses as per their convenience within the same cluster at these institutions. We will also increase the number of hostels of higher education institutions.”
Taking to platform ‘X’, Ranoj Pegu wrote, “We're boosting enrollments through college clustering, faculty sharing, transitioning to co-ed, expanding hostels, and student counseling in HS Schools.”
