FACTORS DETERMINING HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY ON GROSS ENROLLMENT RATE

Abstract

India has suppressed Japan. India’s enrollment in higher education is lower compared to the other G20 nations, despite showing significant increase; however, it is still lower than countries like the United States, South Korea, and Canada. Higher education is the driving force of a country's economy. Higher education enables a country to transform its youth into resourceful individuals who can meet the nation's future demands. In India, the factor used to measure the growth in higher education is Gross Enrollment Rate (GER). An indicator of a country’s social, economic and intellectual development is its tertiary education. The global and regional development patterns highlight receiving tertiary education as vital for fostering creativity, accelerating economic growth, and ensuring equal socioeconomic progress in a society. It has ceased being only a matter of individual self-actualization. India boasts an increased institutional framework, raised enrollment figures, and enhanced investment in higher education. Still, there is a striking disparity in participation and access between states and areas even with all of these efforts. The proportional enrollment in a given level of education relative to the population of the officially recognized age range for that education (in this case, 18–23 years) is referred to as the Gross Enrollment Rate (GER). This dissertation intends to analyze the major factors affecting Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in India with special emphasis on state-level data. The primary goal of the study is to identify and evaluate the determinants of GER in Indian states and comprehend how well these determinants explain the differences in enrollment rates across various regions. The purpose of this study represents a response to the wish for better research- driven understanding of the factors that shape access to higher education – so as to design more sensible policies and more equitable distribution of educational resources. The study is based on secondary data collected from the sources such as the All India Survey On Higher Education (AISHE) reports 2010-2022, Ministry of Education to get expenditure data , the University Grant Commission UGC for the the data on the variables. Variables such as total enrollment in higher education, public expenditure on higher education, number of colleges within staes and number of universities. The process of chossing these variables is on the basis of the exsiting literature and the there impact on higher education. To know the relationship between the GER and the selected independent variables in the model. The regression results indicate that there exits a statistically significant relationship between GER and variable: public expenditure on higher education. Stating the importance of financial and infrastructure development promotes higher education. Still disparities can be seen in GER across states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, when compared to states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, shows the presence of disparities. It particularly emphasizes the policy’s “one-size-fits-all” strategy driven by the disparity of institutional frameworks, regional diversity, geo economy, and system resources. , this dissertation is guided by or focuses on the issue of systematically inadequate public funding for diverse infrastructures as well as the need to enhance these investments. I 6 suggest here that state planners and education policymakers should pay special attention to increasing the number of tertiary education institutions in rural and semi-urban localities. The primary aim of the policies designed to increase GER has to target the better accessibility of women, backward classes, and economically weaker sections. More active measures should also be taken for thorough evaluation and documentation of setting policies to ensure studies identify the effectiveness of new strategies. This work offers practical solutions to the design of context- sensitive, comprehensive, and efficient educational policies by determining the most influential factors of GER in different Indian states.