145 Colleges, 30,000 Graduates a Year, and No Record of Where They Go

Before you pick a college, you ask the one question that actually matters: what happens to people after they leave it?

In Jammu and Kashmir, the state's own answer — given in writing to the Legislative Assembly — is that nobody knows.

The Higher Education Department has acknowledged that it holds no standardised employability data for the graduates of its 145 government degree colleges, which turn out an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 graduates a year, for three consecutive academic sessions: 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26.

What exactly is missing?

The reply is unusually specific about the gap. The department said it does not have "a formal comprehensive assessment or survey mechanism to systematically measure employment outcomes, placement rates, average salary packages and sector-wise absorption of graduates."

Read that list again, because it is the entire set of things a prospective student would want:

• Employment outcomes — whether graduates are working at all
• Placement rates — what proportion are placed, and from which courses
• Average salary packages — what the degree is actually worth in the market
• Sector-wise absorption — which industries are taking them

None of it is collected in a standardised way across the system.

So what does exist?

The department listed what it does have: placement drives, career counselling and institutional-level tracking. The phrase doing the work there is "institutional-level" — individual colleges may keep their own records, in their own formats, to their own standards, and nothing aggregates them. It also said it is taking steps to strengthen alumni and employment-outcome tracking in line with NEP-2020, which does require institutions to follow their graduates.

That is a commitment rather than a dataset. For anyone choosing a college this year, it does not help.

Why it matters more here than elsewhere

In a city with a handful of well-known institutions, word of mouth partly substitutes for data. Across a network of 145 colleges spread over every district — including the GDCs in Samba, Kathua, Udhampur and the smaller towns around Jammu — it does not. A student in the belt deciding between a nearby government degree college and a longer commute into Jammu city, or between a traditional B.A. and one of the newer skill-oriented programmes, is choosing on reputation, rumour and proximity.

It also makes a specific and common frustration legible. If you have ever asked a college office what its placement record is and received a vague answer, this is why: in most cases there is no number to give you.

What is being done about the courses themselves

The same reply points at the department's fix, which is on the curriculum side rather than the measurement side. A committee is rationalising subjects and proposing industry-aligned programmes, with new courses in artificial intelligence, data science, cyber security and remote sensing — to be introduced first in colleges near Jammu and Srinagar that have the infrastructure and faculty to run them.

No timeline, seat count or list of named colleges was given, so treat "near Jammu" as a direction of travel rather than a promise about your college.

There is a related signal worth reading alongside it. Enrolment has been declining in some traditional subjects — Electronics and English Literature were named — with the sharpest falls in rural and remote colleges, even as first-year admissions across the system rose by around 18% this session. Students are moving; the department is trying to work out where to.

The other half of the picture: where students are going

The department does have admission numbers, and they complicate the story in a useful way. Education Minister Sakina Itoo told the Assembly that first-year admissions rose by about 18% this session — but that newly-established degree colleges are getting a lukewarm response despite modern facilities and faculty, with students still choosing traditional subjects at older, established colleges over the newer employment-oriented programmes in tourism, music and horticulture.

One new college is reportedly operating out of four rooms while a land transfer remains unresolved. "If the land is given to us tomorrow, we will make the college as soon as possible," the minister said, describing a dispute in which "one is saying make it here and the other is saying make it there."

So the system is admitting more students, building more colleges, and adding more courses — while unable to say whether any of it improves anyone's employment outcome. That is the gap. Enrolment is measured because it is easy to measure; outcomes are not measured at all.

What you can actually do with this

Three things, none of which require the department to build a database first:

• Ask the college, in writing, for its own numbers. Institutional-level tracking exists in places. A college with a real placement cell will have something; one that cannot produce anything has told you something too.
• Ask the alumni, not the office. The people two and three years ahead of you on your exact course are the most accurate placement data available in J&K right now.
• Use the routes that do publish outcomes. Structured schemes report their own numbers — the apprenticeship route under NAPS, and the college-response system behind JK_SIGMA. Cluster University's NEP-aligned skill minor certificates are another documented add-on to a standard degree.

The figures came in reply to Unstarred Question D. No. 1/6/76, moved by MLA Arjun Singh Raju.

Sources

• Kashmir Observer — 25,000 graduates, no employability data: J&K's blind spot
• Greater Kashmir — 145 colleges produce 30,000 graduates every year: Govt