Raipur - An Emerging Destination

As per the 2001 census, India is in the population bracket of nearly 1 billion where as Chhattisgarh has a population of 20,795,956, and has grown by 18.06% during the last decade.

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which is a gross measure that includes all enrolled in education proportionate to population in India is abysmally low at 10 % (approx). As per the UGC report 2001 figures the GER varies significantly among the states, and districts. The highest GER was observed in Manipur (33.4) followed by a few other States in the North-East. Among the major States Kerala had the highest GER followed by Maharashtra, while the lowest was found in Sikkim (6.3). Gujarat, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Tamilnadu registered lower than the national average. In Chhattisgarh the GER is 8.91% below the national average. As compared to West and some Developing countries. Reeling out statistics, GER is 60 % (approx) in countries like US and Canada, 40 % (approx) in Europe, 21 % (approx) in developing countries. The international average is 23 % (approx). Even in China, which we compare with our economy, it is 15 % (approx).

It's a great challenge and a Herculean task before the government as the Planning Commission has fixed a target of reaching 15 per cent GER by the end of the 11th plan period ending 2012 & it is necessary also as when India is aiming for sustained economic growth and every country is looking towards India. In the age group of 18-23 years GER is used by government as a tool applied for identification of Educationally Backward Districts (EBDs) for the purpose of planning and allocation of funds for higher education under this Scheme, Since enrolment in higher education is significantly influenced by the availability of educational infrastructure and facilities. College-Population Index (CPI) is then used as another methodology to assess the EBD's .CPI is basically the number of colleges per lakh population in the age group of 18-23 years in a given district. The Expansion of Indian Higher Education is to be achieved by providing increased 'access' to higher education so as to raise the GER by 5% by the end of XI Plan period which amounts to increasing the enrolment from the present 10.4 million to 21 millions. Even though India has attained the economic growth of over 9% of GDP in spite of the present low GER, to sustain such a rate of economic growth and to remain competitive in the globalised economy, the country has to have GER of at least 25%.

In order to achieve this target, several approaches are being considered. A daunting task, to begin with, is creation of institution-based-infrastructure to enroll another 10 million eligible youth at the tertiary level. Notwithstanding the initiative to start new universities, the 'bottom-up' pragmatic approach would be to start new colleges to facilitate accelerated and substantial increase in the GER. Therefore, there is a definite need to plan and find resources for establishing at least 10,000 more colleges based on the GER of the Constituent States of the country.

Higher Education in Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh houses some of the best centres of higher learning which provides courses in various disciplines. Although newly formed states in India the education scenario in Chhattisgarh is not very remarkable as it lacks proper educational infrastructure.

There are seven universities in the state and are as follows:-