In Charts | Northeast India's education and employment woes amid unrest

The unemployment rate in Manipur, caught in a spiral of violence since May, is much higher than the national average.

Amid the unrest in Manipur, an aspect with far-reaching consequences that has been less talked about is the abysmal educational and career prospects for its youth — a problem shared by all the northeastern states. Data shows that the region suffers from high unemployment and a lack of good colleges.

Education has been disrupted in Manipur since the start of the unrest in May. Although some schools reopened in July, attendance was low, according to media reports. However, the state wasn’t doing too well in education even before the unrest, especially in higher studies.

No university or college in Manipur is in the top 100 rankings of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2023 released by the ministry of education.

In the northeast, only one state university, Gauhati University, is in the top 100 – in the 88th position. Even with the inclusion of central universities, none comes even close to the top 50 ranks.

Among colleges, only one made the cut – Pachhunga University College in Mizoram. Among the engineering colleges, five made it – the Indian Institute of Technology Gauhati and four National Institutes of Technology.

There are no institutes from the northeast, a region with a population of more than 45 million, in the list of top medical colleges.

Colleges from Nagaland, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh don’t feature in any of the rankings. This means students from these states who can’t afford to move out for education won’t be able to access higher quality learning.

“Even the colleges that exist in the northeast aren’t at par with the ones in the rest of the country. They aren’t modernised and lack resources. So this means that students in the northeast are lagging behind their peers elsewhere in the country,” said Amar Yumnam, visiting professor at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Hyderabad and former vice chancellor of Manipur University.

Lack of specialised professional colleges

Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education of 2020-21 draws a bleaker picture. There is not even a single college that specialises in computer applications in all of the northeast. Nor is there any for hotels, tourism and management, home science, culture, journalism and mass communication.

“There is a lack of institutes offering professional courses which are in demand. The majority of them specialise in training for jobs in the educational sector itself and there is a limit to how much they can absorb. So the only way for students is to move out if they want to learn other courses. Even my own child had to move out,” said Utpal Kumar De, professor in the department of economics at North Eastern Hill University in Shillong.

Apart from Manipur and Mizoram, the other six states have fewer colleges per lakh population of those aged between 18 and 23 than the national figure of 31. In Tripura and Assam, this figure is as low as 13 and 16, respectively.

“If you look at institutes across mainland India, you will see students from the northeast. However, those who are not able to move out because they cannot afford the hostel expenses or other costs, they are left with no options and their education suffers,” said De.

High unemployment

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2021-22, most northeastern states have a higher unemployment rate than the national figure of 4.8.

In Manipur, where there is unrest, the unemployment rate stands at as high as 9. Although all regions in the state fared badly on this metric, deeper scrutiny of the data lays bare the fault lines within the state.

“High unemployment rate has definitely been a contributing factor in the current unrest in Manipur. High unemployment, accompanied by high corruption in the government, has created an atmosphere of deepened inequality in the region,” said Yumnam.

Generally, the rural unemployment rate is lower than the urban figure as the majority of population in the rural areas are employed by agricultural and other allied activities.