Education, Universities and Health in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in the country, so its school system, its universities and its hospitals are all among the largest of their kind, and state papers test them as a set of institutions with founding years and locations. The chapter divides neatly into four: the boards that run the schools, the universities and institutions of national importance, the literacy figures of the census, and the medical colleges, research institutes and health programmes.

The boards that run the schools

The Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Uttar Pradesh, known everywhere as the UP Board, was set up by an Act of 1921 and held its first examination in 1923; its headquarters are at Prayagraj, with regional offices in other cities, and by the number of candidates it examines every year it is among the largest school examination boards in the world. Classes one to eight in the government system are the charge of the Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Board, the Basic Shiksha Parishad, created in 1972 and also seated at Prayagraj. Two more boards complete the picture: the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madarsa Education, set up in 1981 at Lucknow, and the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Sanskrit Shiksha Parishad, which conducts Sanskrit school examinations from Lucknow. Teacher recruitment and school inspection fall under the Basic Education Department and the Secondary Education Department, and the state runs Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas for girls in educationally backward blocks along with the central Samagra Shiksha programme and the midday meal, now PM POSHAN.

The universities

The state holds some of the oldest universities in India, and their founding years are standing questions.

Chaudhary Charan Singh University at Meerut, Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University at Kanpur, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University at Bareilly, Bundelkhand University at Jhansi, Dr. Rammanohar Lohia Avadh University at Ayodhya and Veer Bahadur Singh Purvanchal University at Jaunpur cover the rest of the state, and the Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University at Lucknow affiliates the engineering colleges. Agricultural education is divided among Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology at Kanpur, Acharya Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology at Kumarganj in Ayodhya, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology at Meerut, Banda University of Agriculture and Technology and the Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University at Jhansi.

Institutions of national importance

The Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur was founded in 1959 and the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) at Varanasi grew out of the engineering college of Banaras Hindu University. The Indian Institute of Management at Lucknow dates from 1984, the Indian Institute of Information Technology at Prayagraj from 1999, and the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology at Prayagraj is the state's National Institute of Technology. The Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology at Jais in Amethi, the Indian Institute of Information Technology at Lucknow, the National Institute of Fashion Technology at Rae Bareli and the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan at Agra, founded in 1961 to train Hindi teachers, complete the list most often asked.

Literacy

The Census of 2011 recorded the literacy rate of Uttar Pradesh at 67.68 per cent, with male literacy at 77.28 per cent and female literacy at 57.18 per cent, all below the national average of that census. The district with the highest literacy was Gautam Buddha Nagar and the lowest Shrawasti, a gap that explains why the state concentrates its schemes on the eastern and the Bundelkhand districts. The sex ratio of the state in that census was 912 women to a thousand men. Among the state's own schemes, Mission Prerna works on foundational reading and arithmetic, Operation Kayakalp on school buildings, water and toilets, the Kanya Sumangala Yojana of 2019 pays a girl's family in instalments from birth to graduation, and the Abhyudaya Yojana of 2021 provides free coaching for competitive examinations.

Medical education and health

Sarojini Naidu Medical College at Agra traces its descent from the Agra Medical School of 1854 and is the oldest medical institution in the state. King George's Medical College at Lucknow was raised to the status of King George's Medical University in 2002. The Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Lucknow, established in 1983, is the state's premier referral and postgraduate institute, and the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, also at Lucknow, dates from 2006; the Institute of Medical Sciences of Banaras Hindu University was founded in 1960, and All India Institutes of Medical Sciences have been set up at Gorakhpur and Rae Bareli under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana. The Gorakhpur and Basti divisions are the country's best-known belt of acute encephalitis syndrome and Japanese encephalitis, treated chiefly at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College at Gorakhpur, where the Indian Council of Medical Research also maintains a Regional Medical Research Centre; the state's Dastak and communicable disease campaigns were built around that problem. Health services run through the National Health Mission, the Ayushman Bharat insurance scheme with the state's own Mukhyamantri Jan Arogya Abhiyan, the Janani Suraksha Yojana for institutional delivery, and the ambulance services reached on 108 for emergencies and 102 for mothers and children.

Research institutes

Lucknow is a research city: the Central Drug Research Institute, the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, the National Botanical Research Institute and the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants all sit there under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The Indian Veterinary Research Institute has its headquarters at Izatnagar in Bareilly, the National Sugar Institute at Kanpur dates from 1936, and the Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research is at Lucknow.