The Economic Survey on Monday highlighted that the higher education sector has witnessed acceleration in total enrolment coupled with rising ‘enrolment equity’ over the past eight years.

Citing the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2021-22, it said the total enrolment in higher education has increased to nearly 4.33 crore in FY22 from 4.14 crore in FY21 and 3.42 crore in FY15, an increase of 26.5 per cent since FY15.

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The Survey mentioned that the rise in enrolment in higher education has been driven by underprivileged sections such as SC, ST and OBC, with a faster growth in female enrolment across sections.

Female enrolment in higher education increased to 2.07 crore in FY22 from 1.57 crore in FY15, i.e., a 31.6 per cent increase. The growing equity in higher education implies better employment opportunities for the hitherto backward sections.

The Economic Survey also highlighted that India is making rapid progress in R&D, with nearly 1,00,000 patents granted in FY24, compared to less than 25,000 patent grants in FY20.

According to WIPO, India saw the highest growth (31.6 pc) in patent filings in 2022. India has consistently improved its rank in the Global Innovation Index (GII) from 81st position in 2015 to 40th in 2023, as per GII (2023).

On the human resource side, total Ph.D. enrolment in India has increased to 81.2 pc in FY22 (2.13 lakh) from FY15 (1.17 lakh). The Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) in the country has been consistently increasing over the years and has more than doubled from Rs 60,196.8 crore in FY11 to Rs 127,381 crore in FY21.

High priority to new skilling initiatives

Terming that the NEP (New Education Policy) 2020 provides a good framework to realise this objective, the Survey says new skilling initiatives and revamping the existing skilling initiatives should continue to be of high priority to the Government.

The Survey calls upon the industry to take lead in skill creation saying it has much to gain from taking the initiative with academic institutions rather than leaving it only up to the governments to do the heavy lifting.

However, the Survey highlighted the significant improvement in the proportion of skilled people across all socio-economic classifications, and mentions that 4.4 per cent of the youth in the age cohort of 15-29 years have received formal vocational and technical training, while another 16.6 per cent received training through informal sources.

Noting that productive jobs are vital for growth and inclusion, the Survey says India’s workforce is estimated to be nearly 56.5 crore and will continue to grow until 2044. It estimates that the Indian economy needs to generate nearly 78.51 lakh jobs annually in the non-farm sector to cater to the rising workforce.