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New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of colleges in the country, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka, according to the government's All India Survey for Higher Education 2021-22.
The AISHE survey was released by the Ministry of Education late night on Thursday.
The top 10 states in terms of number of colleges in India include Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Telangana and West Bengal, each having at least 30 or more colleges per lakh population.
According to the survey report, in Uttar Pradesh, there are 8,375 colleges -- up from 8,114 colleges in the previous year -- and there are 30 colleges for every one lakh population.
The states and Union Territories which have a high number of colleges per lakh population are -- Karnataka (66), Telangana (52), Andhra Pradesh (49), Himachal Pradesh (47), Puducherry (53) and Kerala (46).
"Maharashtra comes second with 4,692 colleges. Karnataka comes at the third position with 4,430 colleges whereas Rajasthan is at the fourth position with 3,934 colleges. Tamil Nadu comes at the fifth position with 2,829 colleges followed by Madhya Pradesh with 2,702 colleges,” the report said.
"Andhra Pradesh is at the seventh position with 2,602 colleges and at eighth position Gujarat has 2,395 colleges. Telangana is at the ninth spot with 2,083 colleges followed by West Bengal which has 1,514 colleges,” it added.
The Ministry of Education has been conducting AISHE since 2011, covering all higher educational institutions located in India and imparting higher education in the country.
The survey collects detailed information on different parameters such as student enrolment, teachers' data, infrastructural information, financial information, etc.
There are 45,473 colleges registered under AISHE belonging to the 328 universities (affiliating). Of these 42,825 responded in the survey year 2021-22.
The survey report pointed out that more than 60 per cent colleges are general in nature, 8.7 per cent colleges are specialised in education or teacher education, 6.1 per cent colleges are engineering and technology institutions, 4.3 per cent nursing colleges and 3.5 per cent medical colleges.
While 2.7 per cent colleges offer arts courses, 2.4 per cent are dedicated to pharmacy courses, 0.7 per cent science colleges and 1.4 per cent Sanskrit colleges.
“Out of the 42,825 responding colleges, 14,197 colleges are offering PG programmes and 1,063 have PhD enrolments,” the report said.
Colleges per district are widely distributed across the country. As much as 10.7 per cent colleges out of total registered in AISHE are in the top 10 districts. The top 50 districts have 31.3 per cent of total colleges. Bengaluru Urban district has maximum colleges (1,106) followed by the Jaipur (703), Hyderabad (491), Pune (475), Prayagraj (398), Rangareddi (349), Bhopal (344), Ghazipur (333), Sikar (330) and Nagpur (326).
The total estimated enrolment in higher education institutions is 4,32,68,181 out of which 96,38,345 are in universities and their constituent units, 3,14,59,092 is in colleges, and 21,70,744 in Stand-Alone institutions.