Moa Jamir
The Nagaland Government, on May 10, extended invitation to businesses to invest in the education sector in the State claiming that there is a “huge opportunity.” Addressing the 1st Nagaland Edu Connect Conclave 2022, Advisor for Technical Education and Elections, Medo Yhokha maintained that this would be a “win-win situation for all parties involved.”
Indeed, this is an important issue and the education sector, as attested by the establishment of four State private universities in the past 16 years or so, is a lucrative field. Moreover, the cumulative employment in educational institutions, inclusive of both private and government, would be among the highest in the State, and thus a crucial sector.
But how inclusive is higher education in the State? Inclusivity here is analysed from the prism of opportunities and the ability to access higher education for the general population. This is important as such accesses have direct social, economic and political consequences, among others.
Accordingly, one can safely postulate that the access to higher education is highly skewed in Nagaland, thereby limiting both opportunities as well as the ability of many to seek further studies. This is verifiable if the issue is analysed with two important parameters – type and location of the institutions.
Data given on the Nagaland’s Department of Higher Education website informed that there are 66 colleges in the State, roughly denoting a density of 1 college for around 30,000 people, if computed from the 2011 State Census released a decade back. However, it is pertinent to ascertain the nature of those colleges. Out of 66 colleges, only 15 are designated as government colleges, while the rest – 51 were private colleges. This indicates that 77.27% of existing colleges for higher education were privates.
On the other end, the district-wise break up of colleges in Nagaland further reflects acute regional disparities in terms of locations of those colleges. For instance, out of 66 colleges in the State, 47 or over 71% were located in the then undivided Kohima (21) and Dimapur (26) districts. Apart from 6 in Mokokchung and 3 in Tuensang, all other districts had either 1 or 2 colleges only. It has to be noted that even the four private universities, an Institute of National Importance (National Institute of Technology), three autonomous colleges, and three out of four campuses of the lone central university in the State (Nagaland University) are located at the core.
While is not unusual for educational institutions or the agencies to be concentrated at the core, not at the periphery, the disparities are stark and raises the question of the opportunities available to access higher education.
From the point of inclusivity, however, the nature of institutions matters more. With the existence of a high number of private colleges and universities, the crucial question of affordability also arises, thus limiting the ability to access higher education. Either way, analyses of both parameters are illustrative of barriers toward more universal access to higher education. Apart from inviting investments in the education sector, the State Government must also devise ways to make higher education more accessible to all sections of the population.
For any insight on higher education, drop a line to jamir.moa@gmail.com
