Colleges within schools – The Hindu

When Himanshi, 20, finished school, her heart was set on pursuing a degree in the sciences. But her parents were hesitant to let her go to a college in Haryana’s Gohana, around 15 km from their village, Bhainswal, in Sonipat district. The commute, they felt, was a concern. Himanshi was forced to enrol in Bhainswal Kalan Government College. It offered only a BA programme.

Her classmate Ritu, 21, had hoped for a BA degree with Geography as one of her subjects, but, to her dismay, the college didn’t offer it. Her parents, too, were uncomfortable with the idea of her travelling beyond a few kilometres to study.

When they joined, Himanshi and Ritu found themselves back in a school building. The co-educational college in Bhainswal village, just about 50 km from Delhi, has been running from four rooms on the premises of the Government Senior Secondary School in the village for the past six years.

It has a total strength of 81 — 49 girls and 32 boys — and offers BA programmes in Hindi, English, History and Political Science. All students opted for a degree in History, but the college does not have a History teacher.

When Haryana was carved out of Punjab on November 1, 1966, the State had just one university and two government colleges. Now, Haryana has 38 universities, including 10 State and 24 private universities, 186 government colleges, 97 government-aided colleges, and 94 self-financing colleges. These have helped students, especially women, access education, but the lack of infrastructure and an acute teacher shortage have impacted the quality of higher education.

After the National Education Policy 2020 was unveiled, the Haryana Government, in a press release, stated that the gross enrolment of girls in higher education in the State was 32%. To meet the national goal of 50% by 2030, they aim to have a college within a 20-km radius of each home, so access is easier, especially for women.  itself caters to just around six villages.

Posts waiting to be filled

The college principal, Suraj Prakash Yadav, says he wrote many letters to the Director General of Higher Education (DGHE) seeking a History teacher, but all went unanswered. So for the past two years, Mr. Yadav, who holds an MPhil in Mathematics and a postgraduate diploma in Computer Science and Applications, has taken it upon himself to teach the subject to students.

“It was a question of the students’ future,” says the mild-mannered Mr. Yadav. He fiddles with a partially torn book — A History of the Modern World — on a table before him in his dimly lit office, which also serves as a library and a staff room.

With him are his two assistant professors: Manjit Singh, who teaches Computer Science and Ashwani Kumar, who teaches Political Science. The three sit in the staff room that has the logo of both the school and the college. Rajender Singh Malik, the principal of Bhainswal’s Government Senior Secondary School, from whose premises the college runs, is also there.

“Sir padh kar phir padhate hain. Raat ko khud padhte hain, phir subah bachchon ko padhate hain (Sir studies himself first, then teaches. He studies at night, and then teaches the children in the morning),” Mr. Singh chimes in. He and Mr. Kumar are the only teachers of the 17 sanctioned posts.

Mr. Yadav says he had made a request to the District Higher Education Officer for a History teacher on deputation, but there are only two or three subject teachers in the entire district. In fact, across Haryana, there are only 169 teachers against 358 sanctioned posts. An increased workload demands 445 posts, as per government estimates.

Mr. Yadav, who is an associate professor of Computer Science, is not new to this ‘out of syllabus’ teaching. A few years ago, he taught Mathematics and Statistics to undergraduate students during his posting at a government college in Gurugram, when the subject teacher’s post was vacant. “When the post was filled, I began teaching Commerce students Accounts,” he says, laughing.

Secondary school principal Mr. Malik says the shortage of teachers was never allowed to cause any “academic loss” to the students. The staff from both institutes “work together like a family”, he emphasises. “The History teacher from our school pitches in whenever they need an extra hand at the college, and the professors from the college return the favour when we need them,” he says.

Mr. Singh is grateful that the college “at least has a full-time principal”, because of which they’ve managed to run the classes despite the challenges. “When professors visit the placement cell or women’s cell, we request them to also hold classes in their respective domains for our students. They oblige out of sheer respect for the principal,” he adds.

In 2025, advocate Aman Dahiya filed an application under the Right to Information Act asking for details on teaching staff in government colleges in Haryana. The government’s response revealed that there are only 3,354 teachers against 7,986 sanctioned posts in all government colleges and universities. Up to 2,057 guest lecturers bridge the gap between sanctioned and vacant posts.

As per an estimate by the Department of Higher Education, the number of sanctioned posts should be revised to 8,572 according to the workload in 2024-25. Mr. Dahiya says the higher education system in Haryana has “collapsed”. He was shocked to find that a girls’ college in Karnal’s Nigdhu was functioning from inside a temple. “The government is running away from its responsibility to ensure quality education in schools and colleges. It is instead pushing for privatisation of education,” alleges Mr. Dahiya.

Colleges without campuses

The land for the Bhainswal College, which has an abandoned primary health centre on it, was allocated six months ago. The building is expected to be ready in a couple of years. Mr. Singh says every new college in Haryana runs from school buildings as a stopgap arrangement for a few years, before it gets its own campus.

Political Science professor Mr. Kumar says almost half the government colleges in Haryana that came into existence after 2018 don’t have their own campuses. In Sonipat itself, he says, the colleges in Baroda, Bhainswal, Ganaur, and Jakhauli, to name a few, are running from school buildings. In Mohana, construction work for the new college building has now begun, he adds.

“When the college does not have a campus of its own, students are deprived of many facilities. They don’t have a playground, a library, or a laboratory. At a meeting last year, the DGHE pointed out the gaps in infrastructure in these colleges and directed officials to make up for the shortcomings,” says Mr. Kumar, who attended the meeting in October 2025.

Echoing his views, Mr. Singh adds that the lack of physical infrastructure impedes extracurricular activities such as sports meets, youth festivals and talent search programmes.

Mr. Yadav attributes the poor strength in colleges to the lack of infrastructure. He shares an example from his experience: a college in Gurugram saw a surge in admissions after shifting to its own building. “It had only 25 to 30 students in its BA programme till it was in a makeshift building. Students coming to us for admission would say that it does not even look like a college. But when it moved to its own building near Kanhai village, all 160 seats were filled. The building makes a big difference. It changes how students and parents perceive the institute,” he explains.

Mr. Yadav has an additional charge of three more colleges: Government College (Co-ed), Ganaur; Hindu College of Education, Sonipat; and Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Kharkhoda. The college in Ganaur that came into existence three years ago has 360 students, but no sanctioned posts. The District Higher Education Officer has assigned teachers from different colleges to Ganaur on deputation for three days a week. “Deputation is a hassle for both teachers and students,” says Mr. Kumar, citing his own experience of teaching on deputation at the Ganaur college two years ago. He would travel 75 km daily, thrice a week, which took a toll on him physically and mentally. “Deputation disrupts the teacher-student bond. A regular teacher strikes a bond with the students, who show him respect. This bond is missing when someone is deputed for a short time. Both know it is a temporary arrangement,” he says.

In fact, the Bhainswal College’s two other teachers, of Hindi and English, are on deputation from another college. “They came for only three days a week till last July. Now they come all six days of the week,” says Ritu.

Decrease in women’s gap years

The Government Girls College in Mohana, around 10 km from Bhainswal, has 10 appointed teachers against 15 sanctioned posts. It came into existence in June 2019, but the college still runs from seven rooms within the premises of a senior secondary school. The construction for the building is underway, and the college administration hopes to start the new academic session in July 2026, for a few classes in its own building. It offers Arts and Commerce streams with a total strength of 160 against 240 seats.

Principal Sandeep Khasa says that despite the criticism and shortcomings, government colleges in rural areas — established over the past decade — are a blessing for women students. He’s been involved with the college since its inception and notes that about a fourth of the women students in the first year had come back to education after a few years of graduating from school.

Mr. Khasa explains, “When an Arts stream student takes a break after senior secondary, it’s often due to non-academic reasons. Six years ago, when this college started, about a fourth of the girls had a one- to two-year gap after school. Parents were hesitant to send them to city colleges due to safety and transport concerns, or they couldn’t afford private colleges close to their villages.”

Where a private college charges ₹20,000 annually for an Arts course, a government college charges less than one-fourth of that. “These colleges have made a difference. Many girls wouldn’t have studied further otherwise.” He adds that the number of girls with gap years has steadily decreased. Mohana, Mr. Khasa says, is witnessing industrial growth similar to the neighbouring Kharkhoda and Kundli areas in Sonipat, and with the surge in migrant populations, the college intake is sure to rise steadily.

Government-aided college challenges

The 97 government-aided colleges in Haryana — privately managed institutions that receive financial grants from the State government to cover staff salaries and other expenses — are grappling with an acute staff shortage.

Surender Singh Rana, general secretary, Government-Aided Colleges Principals Association, says that almost 50% of the seats of teaching and non-teaching staff and principals are vacant as per the information gathered by the association from colleges in October 2025.

Of the 97 posts of principal sanctioned by the government, 56 are vacant. Similarly, 1,394 sanctioned teaching posts — out of 2,831 — are vacant. Also, 785 non-teaching posts are vacant out of 1,668 sanctioned. Mr. Rana says requests seeking permission to fill the vacancies are turned down by the authorities.

“Aided colleges offer significantly lower fees compared to private institutions. So it becomes difficult for them to hire teachers on their own when the government backs down. For instance, Chhotu Ram Arya College of the Tika Ram Education Society (in Sonipat) has 52 posts, but 44 are vacant. We hired staff for the vacant posts from our own resources, though we are not able to pay them anywhere on a par with regular faculty,” says Mr. Rana, principal of the Tika Ram College of Education, Sonipat.

He claims that the higher education scenario in the State has deteriorated over the past decade, with the University Grants Commission and the Haryana Government tightening the noose around funds to aided colleges, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Haryana’s financial allocation to education in 2013-14 was 14.77% of the budget. For 2024-25, this dropped to 10.39%.

ashok.kumar@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew