CM aims at crossing Global Enrolment Ratio

CHENNAI: Stressing that Tamil Nadu under the stewardship of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was seriously chasing the goal of overshooting the world average of 23 per cent Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education, Higher Education Minister P Palaniappan on Tuesday detailed plans to achieve the goal.Providing details about the GER, Palaniappan explained that the ratio reflected the number of students pursuing higher education in the age group of 18-23. In India, the ratio is 13.8, out of which women constituted 9.1 per cent and men 12.4 per cent. The ratio in developed countries was 54 and during 2010-11 it was 23 per cent in China, 34 per cent in Brazil, 57 per cent in England, 77 per cent in Australia and 83 per cent in US and the global average is 23 percent.“The target of our CM is to achieve 25 per cent, overshooting the global average,” he said. Detailing initiatives including new arts and science colleges, engineering college in Bodinayakanur, an IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) in Srirangam, new courses, filling vacant teaching positions, increasing the remuneration for guest lecturers, special classrooms with video conferencing facility and foreign language lab, free laptops, Palaniappan said Jayalalithaa had launched so many programmes in a brief period to better the GER in Tamil Nadu.