Context:

• Tamil Nadu has emerged as the leader in the country in terms of Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education.
• The All India Survey on Higher Education report (2106-2017), released by Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar here on Friday, saw the State lead with a GER of 46.9%. Among Union Territories, Chandigarh recorded 56.1%.
• Tamil Nadu has also done very well in terms of male and female GER figures, as also the GER figures for the Scheduled Castes.
• Bihar, Assam, West Bengal and Odisha posted low GERs of 14.4%, 17.2%, 18.5% and 21% respectively. Uttar Pradesh fared marginally better at 24.9%, close to the national average.
• GER for higher education is calculated with reference to the age group 18-23. It is the total enrolment in higher education, irrespective of age, expressed as a percentage to the eligible official population (18-23 years) in a given school year.

Other facts:

• With a female GER of 45.6% , the State is just behind two Union Territories, Chandigarh and Delhi.
• In terms of male GER, Tamil Nadu at 48.2% tops the list of all States and Union Territories, followed by the UTs of Chandigarh and Delhi.
• At 38%, it also has the highest GER for Scheduled Castes among all major states of India.
• Releasing the report , Mr. Javadekar said the all-India GER had grown from 23% in 2014 to 25.2% now, and the government hoped to achieve a GER of 30% by 2022.
• The report shows that the improvement in GER has continued from the UPA to the NDA days.
• It was 19.4 percent in 2010-11; 20.8 in 2011-12; 21.5 in 2012-13; 23 in 2013-14; 24.3 in 2014-15; 24.5 in 2015-16, and 25.2 percent in 2016-17.

Aadhaar for faculty:

• 15 lakh teachers in higher education institutions, 85% had been seeded with Aadhaar, and this had shown that 70-80,000 of them were reported as teachers in more than one college.
• While it was permissible to be guest teachers, the government would find out whether there were cases of fraud.