Here's exactly what meets even to the undiscerning eye. The empirical evidence of so many young foreigners has found a sound statistical basis — about one in every four foreign students in India pursues his or her studies in Karnataka.
The state is reported to have around 10,100 foreign students, which constitutes around 36.7 per cent of the total number of foreign students studying in the country. It is the leading state in attracting students from overseas, followed by neighbouring Andhra Pradesh which attracts only 4,700 students (17.06 per cent).
The findings are from a study titled ‘Status of Higher Education in South India 2013’ that was conducted recently by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited (DTTIPL) and industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Karnataka also ranks fifth among all states and union territories in terms of the total number of universities with 43. It ranks second in the number of state public universities with 23 and third on deemed universities with 11. Karnataka, in fact, has 6.9 per cent of all universities. The state also has the highest number of medical universities (6) in the country, and ranks fifth in number of general universities (21).
According to the report, Karnataka, with 3098 colleges, has a share of 9.4 per cent of all colleges in India and ranks fourth in terms of total colleges in any state. In terms of access, it has the second highest concentration of 44 colleges per lakh population as compared to the all-India average of 23 colleges per lakh population. In terms of average enrolment per college, the state (414) is lesser than all-India average of 700. The total enrolment of students in regular mode in higher education institutes in Karnataka is around 16.06 lakh. Out of the total colleges in the state, 90 per cent are affiliated to universities, and the remaining are constituent/university colleges, PG/off campus or recognised centres by universities. In terms of management, Karnataka colleges are dominated by private unaided colleges, forming 66.3 per cent of all colleges in the state, followed by 20 per cent owned by government and 13.5 per cent that are private aided.
The PTR (pupil-teacher ratio) of colleges in Karnataka at 9.7 students per teacher is better than the all-India average of 15.1. The total number of teaching staff and non-teaching staff in all colleges is estimated to be 1.32 lakh and 0.95 lakh, respectively (extrapolating data available for 91.8 per cent cent colleges in state). However, given the large number of colleges, the number of teachers per college (42.5) and non-teaching staff per college (30.5) are lesser than the corresponding all–India levels.
The good news ends there. The survey also found that obtaining funds, focus on innovative research and lack of committed faculty plague the system dearly in the South.
Upon analysing the responses on the basis of discipline of the institute, the survey shows that obtaining funds is the most important challenge faced across all categories of institutes. The DTTIPL-CII report also indicates that fostering entrepreneurship through education and implementing industry-institute interaction initiatives have been a key challenge in making the country's education system more employable.
