Opinion: The Enrolment Numbers Keep Coming. The Explanation for J&K's Empty College Seats Has Not

In February 2023, the Higher Education Department set up special teams of nodal principals to find out why some newly opened degree colleges were drawing so few students. Three and a half years later, on 30 September 2026, the department's own statement to the Legislative Assembly showed enrolment in the colleges it covers falling from 24,745 in 2023-24 to 18,312 in 2025-26, about 26%. In the Jammu division the fall was 31.5%, from 12,625 to 8,644. The reports we have read give no reason for it. That is the editorial point: the numbers keep arriving, the explanation does not.

Numbers that do not line up

The figures pull in different directions. In June 2026 Higher Education Minister Sakeena Itoo said, according to Kashmir Reader, that admission reforms had helped "reverse the declining trend" of recent years and that admissions could exceed 50,000 after the next two rounds. In the Assembly in September, Greater Kashmir reported her saying first-year admissions were up 18% this year. And the district-wise statement tabled on 30 September shows two-year enrolment down. These are different measures, first-year admissions against total enrolment across two years in the colleges in one statement, and the reports we read do not reconcile them. A reader cannot tell from them whether the trend has turned.

What has already been tried

The record is longer than this week's headlines. The government announced 102 new degree colleges in 2019, in two phases of 52 and 50, and put the second phase on hold for lack of resources. A high-level committee in 2021 recommended that colleges whose enrolment did not improve could be rationalised. The 2023 meeting heard that permanent buildings were stuck on land: the government wanted state land, as it could not bear compensation to a donor, and some sites were disputed or sub-judice. In September 2026 the Minister again cited land disputes holding up a college working out of four rooms.

The department's current approach, as it told the House, is a committee on rationalising subjects and introducing industry-aligned, skill-based courses, a programme-wise enrolment review and a cluster-based model for rural colleges. Ms Itoo has also asked principals to step up outreach to students and parents in low-enrolment colleges, and said walk-in admissions are now possible through an in-house online portal.

Two readings, each in its own words

The department's reading is that students prefer established "legacy colleges", that new subjects sometimes draw no one, and that courses will follow demand. "If there are no students, we can't make the assistant professor or other faculty members sit in the classroom with no one to be taught," the Minister told the House, as reported by Greater Kashmir.

The question the data raises is whether supply is the problem at all. Subject-level figures reported in September show empty seats in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Applications at some colleges, not only in new or unusual subjects. No official or stakeholder we could quote has made this argument, so we put it as a question, not a claim: if core subjects are empty too, does a new-course list answer it?

What a Jammu student can do

• Check a college's current subject list and sanctioned intake, not last year's prospectus.
• Ask what happens to enrolled students if a subject is discontinued; the reports do not say.
• If you are weighing a newer college, ask where its permanent campus stands and how many faculty are in post.
• Treat any "skill-based" course as something to question: who teaches it, and what was last year's intake?

What to watch

Three things will show whether this is a blip: the placement and employability survey the department says it is undertaking, the committee's decisions on which subjects stay, and next year's first-year numbers set against these two-year totals. It would also help if the 2023 teams' findings on why students stay away were made public; we could not find them.

Earlier JammuBeat reports: the district-wise enrolment figures and the subjects being dropped.

Sources: Greater Kashmir, 10 February 2023; Kashmir Reader, 24 June 2026. The September figures and quotes are from Greater Kashmir's reports of 24, 27 and 30 September 2026. Photo: Govt. Degree College, Doda, Anzer Ayoob / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), file photo.