Affordability of education in the eight North Eastern States of India as per the National Sample Survey

Education and skill development are vital tools for ensuring productive manpower in the process of economic development in a society. This becomes more crucial in a Region known for its economic backwardness even after 68 years of Independence of the country. The Region referred here are the eight States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. Lack of educational infrastructure (buildings, hostels, teacher quarters, transportation, etc), equipments, trained faculties, coaching facilities has hampered the education sector in this Region. On top of it, the cost of education and its affordability to a large section of the society (especially in the rural areas) has been a cause of concerned. The fact that more than 76% of the rural households have the highest earning members less than Rs. 5000/-per month has contributed to the high dropouts and discontinuance of education at 30–35%. On average, more than 16% of per capita income is spent for pursuing general education, more than 52% for vocational education and at 128% for pursuing technical/professional education. Even the technical/professional educational in government institutions in the Region is more costlier than for the country as a whole. This resulted in a very low percentage of technical/professional course students to general course students at 1: 48 while the ratio at the national level is 1: 19. Over the years, a number of institutions have been set up but mere availability of institutions is not sufficient