50 years on, Higher Education in State in the doldrums

Staff Reporter
Dimapur, November 15

A seminar on ‘50 years of Higher Education in Nagaland’ was held today with Norbert Noraho, Additional Director of Higher Education Nagaland as guest of honor.
The seminar was organized by Dimapur Go vernment College (DGC) and sponsored by Department of Higher Education, Nagaland (DHEN). Higher education in the State is relatively older to statehood as the history of Higher Education in Nagaland dates back to 1959 with the establishment of Fazil Ali College in Mokokchung as the first college. The growth of higher education was at its best during the 90s when 21 colleges were established. Today the number of colleges in Nagaland include 58 secular colleges of which 15 are government colleges and 43 private colleges. Out of this 58 secular colleges, 26(10 government and 16 private colleges) are included under section 2(f) 12(B) of the UGC Act of 1956 where they are entitled to apply for UGC grants. Dr. Buno Liegise, Professor at the Department of Education, Nagaland University, in her key note address, regretted that though UGC is a remarkable route for obtaining infrastructural growth of colleges, many colleges are yet to explore and avail the UGC grants due to lack of many problems which are yet to be solved.
The Annual Administration Report of Department of Higher Education, Government of Nagaland, shows that private colleges are performing better comparing to the Government College students for degrees in BA, B. Sc and B.Com.
Patkai Christian College which acquired the status of an autonomous college is the first and only autonomous college in Northeast situated here in Nagaland.
Post-graduate courses in the state are mainly provided by Nagaland University (NU) where presently the University has 34 post-graduates academic departments which provides MA/M.Sc/M.Sc. Agri/M.Com/MBA, M.Phil and PhD Degree in various disciplines.
Dr. Buno Liegise expressed that one of the one of the most urgent requirements to improve quality of higher education is the establishment of an Academic Staff College in the State where refresher courses in various disciplines and orientation programs must be organized to enable teachers/administrators to upgrade their knowledge and skills and also the infrastructure development must be given priority as infrastructure also plays an important role in imparting education.
Till July, 2013, Nagaland University has produced 182 Ph.D theses in the principle of science (58), humanities and education (51), social sciences (39) and Agriculture (34).
On the issue of quality assurance & control, Dr. Buno Liegise stated that though some private as well as government colleges are doing well, the quality of higher education in the state requires to be examined comprehensively as many colleges stand at risk of failing to provide quality education.
Dr. Buno Liegise quoted saying that Nagaland as a state must use the 50 years of statehood to analyze where it stands today and plan for the future as we cannot remain marginalized and under developed forever.

Issues and challenges of Higher education:
As long as the State Government allocates only a meagre 1% GDP to higher education nothing can be done. The educational landscape of higher education in Nagaland does not look very good as well with just 11 sciences and 14 commerce streams as compared to 46 arts stream. There are more colleges offering arts stream so there is a need to promote and highlight Science education, technology and management studies in the state. Adding to this woe, the State has only one central university that is still struggling to take off even after nineteen years of existence which reveals that the state lags far behind in providing professional and technical education/courses.
No doubt elementary education has received the much needed boost and attention in the recent years with the implementation of communitization of elementary education, the SSA, RMSA and RTE however higher education has been sidelined and presently it is being kept under the office of a parliamentary Secretary and not under the Authority of a Minister with cabinet rank in the Government.
It is also said that no nation can neglect Higher Education and hope to become an advanced/developed nation herein lay the importance of the gross enrollment ratio in Higher Education within the state which is said to be around 9.47%.
Dr. Buno Liegise also noted that courses offered in Nagaland are mostly conventional and mostly theory oriented where the main method of teaching-learning is lecture-based. And that the utilization of ICT in classroom is a matter that needs to be discussed wherein building a responsive environment. Infrastructure and library upgradation concern should also be strengthened in order to create an eco system for research and development.