Bihar Opens 211 Colleges at Once, Plans Oxford Training for Teachers
Bihar has opened 211 new degree colleges in a single day and announced plans to send selected teachers to universities such as Oxford for training.
Bihar has opened 211 new degree colleges simultaneously, a first for any Indian state, with 2,451 newly appointed assistant professors attending an orientation programme on Sunday. The colleges have come up in block towns that previously had no degree college of their own, and the state's total tally of recognised degree colleges has now crossed 1,000, up from around 800.
Speaking at the orientation, Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary said the government would identify faculty members to be sent for training and orientation courses to some of the world's leading universities, including Oxford. The higher education department is working on the plan, under which 100 teachers will be selected in the first batch from among the state's more than 1,000 degree colleges.
Higher Education Minister Sanjay Singh Tiger said the overseas exposure is part of a larger effort to strengthen higher education and raise teacher confidence, adding that a detailed plan and a clear selection process would be worked out soon.
The new colleges are intended to reduce the burden on rural students, especially young women, who have had to travel long distances to pursue higher education.
The international training proposal sits within a broader set of reforms. A higher education department official said the state has allocated 21.7% of its budget, amounting to Rs 68,216 crore, to education in the current 2026–27 fiscal year. The department is also enforcing 75% attendance and biometric tracking for teachers, and plans to introduce smart classes, artificial intelligence, and inter-college, national and international exposure for both teachers and students.
The direction of the reforms has drawn support from older academic institutions in the state. A Patna University professor described the move as welcome, saying higher education, long neglected, was attempting to balance quantity with quality by bringing modern pedagogy, research techniques and global standards into local classrooms in Bihar.