One question, does mainstream education in degreecollegesstill lead to opportunity?
The real question confronting Jammu and Kashmir’s higher education system, specifically the government degree colleges (GDCs) is not why colleges are struggling to fill classrooms. It is whether mainstream higher education is still perceived as a credible pathway to careers. If students believe that government jobs require coaching centres, private jobs require skills acquired elsewhere, entrepreneurship demands independent learning, and even higher studies can be pursued through flexible distance education, then the traditional college risks becoming a place where degrees are earned but futures are not necessarily built. Reversing declining enrolment, therefore, requires restoring the career relevance of mainstream higher education itself.
The recent admission figures from GDCs across Jammu and Kashmir are not merely statistics; they are indicators of changing student behaviour. When a significant number of colleges fail to attract even a hundred students after multiple admission rounds, it is tempting to blame demographic decline, migration or changing aspirations. While these factors certainly matter, they do not explain the whole story.
Students are making rational choices. Like every investment, higher education is increasingly judged by its expected returns. Before choosing a college, families ask a simple question: Will this institution improve my child’s future? If the answer appears uncertain, students naturally look elsewhere.This is not unique to Jammu and Kashmir. Across the world, higher education systems are being forced to justify their relevance. Universities in Japan have merged and specialised in response to declining enrolment. Institutions in the United States are redesigning curricula around employability, interdisciplinary education and lifelong learning as they confront the so-called enrolment cliff. The lesson is universal: institutions that fail to evolve gradually lose students.Jammu and Kashmir is experiencing the same transition, but the response has remained largely administrative rather than structural.
The first issue is one of planning. Over the last two decades, higher education expanded rapidly with the establishment of Government Degree Colleges across almost every region. Expanding educational access was a commendable objective. However, access and sustainability are not synonymous. Every institution requires a sufficient student population, qualified faculty, relevant academic programmes and a long-term academic vision. Expansion without continuous assessment of demographic realities and educational demand inevitably creates institutions that struggle to justify their existence.
The challenge today is therefore not simply the number of colleges but the way they are organised.Most colleges continue to resemble one another. They offer nearly identical combinations of Arts, Science and Commerce regardless of the region’s economy, geography or employment opportunities. A student in a horticultural district studies the same curriculum as one in an urban commercial centre or a tourism hub. Such institutional uniformity leaves students with little reason to choose one college over another.
Perhaps the time has come to move from generalisation to specialisation. Instead of every college attempting to teach every subject, each district should develop academically strong institutions with distinct identities. One college could emerge as a centre for science, engineering and technology, another for humanities and social sciences, while agriculture, tourism, environmental sciences, entrepreneurship, healthcare, artificial intelligence and vocational education could be concentrated where regional strengths naturally exist. Excellence grows through concentration, not duplication.
The second transformation affecting higher education is the emergence of a parallel education ecosystem.Government colleges are no longer competing only with universities.They are competing with coaching centres.For many young people, coaching institutes have become synonymous with careers, while colleges have become synonymous with degrees. Students attend coaching classes with discipline and seriousness because they believe employment depends upon them. College attendance becomes secondary because they perceive little relationship between classroom learning and competitive success.This perception should deeply concern policymakers.It suggests that mainstream higher education is gradually losing its position as the primary pathway to opportunity.
The answer is not to criticise coaching centres. They exist because they fulfil a demand that colleges have not adequately addressed. The real challenge is to integrate career guidance, competitive examination preparation, internships, communication skills, digital literacy, entrepreneurship and industry engagement into the college ecosystem itself. Students should not have to leave the campus to prepare for their future.
“Higher education in Jammu and Kashmir requires a new social contract among colleges, teachers, students, employers, and the government, rather than more enrollment drives. To fill empty classrooms, institutions must shift their focus from advertising to purpose—transforming knowledge into professional competence, confidence, and careers. Ultimately, the future of higher education in the region depends on restoring students’ belief that a college degree is a genuine step toward a meaningful future.”
Another aspect of it is, the growing preference for open and distance learning which deserves careful reflection. Institutions such as IGNOU perform an invaluable national service by making higher education accessible to working professionals, women with family responsibilities, geographically isolated learners and those unable to pursue regular education. Their contribution to educational inclusion is unquestionable. Yet an important policy question arises why students with full access to regular colleges increasingly prefer distance education.
A regular college offers sustained interaction with teachers, laboratories, seminars, libraries, research opportunities, peer learning, mentoring and campus life. If these advantages no longer persuade students to enrol, then the problem lies not with distance education but with the declining distinctiveness of mainstream colleges. Public policy should therefore strengthen—not weaken—the value of regular higher education. Classroom-based learning must offer opportunities that cannot be replicated through distance mode. Undergraduate research, fieldwork, innovation, laboratories, internships, community engagement and continuous faculty mentoring should become defining features of every regular college.
Another subtle issue concerns the messages colleges themselves communicate. Across campuses, successful civil service candidates are frequently invited to motivate students. Such interactions undoubtedly inspire young minds and should continue. However, when institutional discussions revolve primarily around coaching institutes, preparation strategies and examination techniques, an unintended message may emerge: that careers are built in coaching centres while colleges merely provide eligibility. This narrative weakens the moral authority of higher education. Colleges should celebrate civil servants, but they should equally celebrate professors, lecturers, scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, healthcare professionals and distinguished alumni. Students need to see that mainstream education itself creates successful lives, not merely successful examinations.
The condition of teachers also shapes student perceptions. Thousands of contractual faculty members have served the higher education system with remarkable dedication despite prolonged uncertainty regarding service conditions and career progression. While contractual appointments may reduce immediate expenditure, they also send a powerful message to students. When highly qualified teachers themselves struggle for professional security, young people naturally question whether higher education remains a dependable career.A confident education system requires confident educators.Investing and professionally supporting contractual faculty is not merely an employment policy. It is an investment in institutional credibility.
Academic culture within colleges must also change.Attendance should not be treated as a bureaucratic formality. Equally, students should not be allowed to reduce colleges to examination centres through nominal admissions. Classrooms should become intellectually indispensable. Attendance improves not through surveillance but through relevance. Students willingly attend institutions where teaching is inspiring, discussions are meaningful, research is encouraged and learning extends beyond textbooks.
Perhaps the most neglected area is research. Government Degree Colleges should no longer function exclusively as teaching institutions. Faculty should be encouraged—and evaluated—for producing publishable research addressing local, national and global challenges. Undergraduate students should participate in inquiry, innovation and community-based research from the earliest stages of their education. Colleges that create knowledge become institutions of aspiration.
Finally, higher education governance itself requires redefinition. Success should no longer be measured by the number of colleges established, buildings inaugurated or funds allocated. Those are inputs.The real indicators are outcomes. Are graduates employable? Are employers satisfied? Do students recommend their colleges? Are institutions producing research, innovation and community impact?Do students see college as the beginning of opportunity or merely as the minimum qualification for something that must be pursued elsewhere? Presently in coaching centres these are the questions that should shape policy.
Jammu and Kashmir does not need more admission drives. It needs a new social contract between colleges, teachers, students, employers and government. Colleges must once again become places where knowledge leads to competence, competence leads to confidence and confidence leads to careers. Empty classrooms are not asking for more advertisements. They are asking for more purpose. The future of mainstream higher education in Jammu and Kashmir will depend not on how many students can be persuaded to enrol, but on how many genuinely believe that walking through the gates of a college is still the first step towards a meaningful future.
(The author is a teacher and a researcher based in Gowhar Pora Chadoora of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”)
