Education and Health in Bihar: Universities and Schemes

Bihar is the land where Nalanda and Vikramshila once drew students from across Asia, and it is also the state that recorded the lowest literacy rate in the Census of 2011. Examiners use that contrast often, and they treat education and health as one chapter of state administration: the universities and the towns they sit in, the boards that hold the examinations, the literacy figures of the Census, the medical colleges and the diseases and schemes that belong to the state. BPSC, BSSC, Bihar Police, CTET and SSC papers ask which university is the oldest, which district reads the most, which institute stands in which town and which scheme pays for what. This chapter gathers those facts in one place.

Universities and higher education

Patna University, set up on 1 October 1917, is the oldest university in Bihar and one of the oldest in the country. It began as an examining and affiliating body for the whole of Bihar and Odisha, and the universities that came later were carved out of its territory as the state grew. The second strand of higher education in the state is the traditional one, because Bihar keeps separate universities for Sanskrit at Darbhanga and for Arabic and Persian at Patna, a reminder of how old learning survived into the modern system.

Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University at Muzaffarpur began life as Bihar University and was renamed after Dr Ambedkar; Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University carries the name of the Santhal leader who fought the Company; Jai Prakash University at Chapra, Veer Kunwar Singh University at Arrah and Bhupendra Narayan Mandal University at Madhepura serve the Saran, Shahabad and Kosi regions. Maulana Mazharul Haque Arabic and Persian University stands at Patna.

Professional institutes, boards and literacy

The professional institutions are a favourite of one-mark questions because each sits in a different town. The Indian Institute of Technology Patna was among the eight new institutes of 2008; the National Institute of Technology Patna grew out of the Bihar College of Engineering, one of the oldest engineering colleges in the country, and became an NIT in 2004; the Indian Institute of Management is at Bodh Gaya; Chanakya National Law University is at Patna; and an Indian Institute of Information Technology works at Bhagalpur.

• The Bihar School Examination Board at Patna holds the matriculation and intermediate examinations of the state.
• The Bihar State Madarsa Education Board, set up in 1922, is among the oldest madarsa boards in India, and a separate Sanskrit Shiksha Board examines Sanskrit schools.
• The Bihar Board of Open Schooling and Examination serves students outside the regular school system.
• The Census of 2011 put the literacy rate of Bihar at 61.8 per cent, the lowest among the states, with 71.2 per cent for men and 51.5 per cent for women.
• In the same Census, Rohtas was the district with the highest literacy in Bihar and Purnia the district with the lowest.

The schemes that work on these figures are the ones the state is known for: the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana of 2006, which put girls of Class 9 on bicycles and became a model for other states, the uniform and scholarship schemes for school children, the Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana for girls from birth to graduation, and, in higher education, the Bihar Student Credit Card and the Kushal Yuva Program of the Saat Nischay.

Medical colleges and health institutions

Patna Medical College Hospital, opened in 1925 as the Prince of Wales Medical College, is the oldest medical college in Bihar and still one of the largest hospitals in eastern India. Darbhanga Medical College at Laheriasarai followed in 1946. The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences at Patna, set up in 1983, is the state’s own referral and teaching institute, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Patna came up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana. Nalanda Medical College at Patna and Sri Krishna Medical College at Muzaffarpur are the other old teaching hospitals, and the Indian Council of Medical Research runs the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences at Agamkuan in Patna, the national centre for research on kala-azar.

Health indicators and the schemes that follow

Bihar carries the heaviest burden of kala-azar, or visceral leishmaniasis, in India. The parasite is carried by the sandfly, which breeds in the damp cracks of mud walls, and the national programme works through indoor residual spraying, free diagnosis and treatment at block level and an incentive for the patient’s wage loss. Acute encephalitis syndrome in the litchi belt around Muzaffarpur and seasonal flooding in the north are the other recurring health problems of the state. The National Family Health Survey of 2019 to 2021 recorded a total fertility rate of about three children per woman in Bihar, the highest among the states, which is why family welfare and institutional delivery are the centre of the state’s health effort.

• Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana gives cashless treatment up to Rs 5 lakh a family a year, extended by the state to ration card families through the Mukhyamantri Jan Arogya Yojana.
• The Bal Hriday Yojana pays for the treatment of children born with heart disease, and the Mukhyamantri Chikitsa Sahayata Kosh helps poor patients with the cost of serious illness.
• The 102 ambulance service and the 104 health advice line are the state’s emergency and counselling arms, and Janani Bal Suraksha brings free delivery care.