thiruvananthapuram even as kerala has the highest enrollment rate in schools it lags in terms of gross enrollment ratio of students in higher education sector compared to its neighbouring states which in turn poses a serious question on the quality of higher education said the economic review report released on thursday as per the allindia survey on higher education conducted by the ministry of human resources development gross enrollment in higher education was only 308 in 201516 though there may be under estimation of the percentage owing to nonparticipation of a large number of colleges in the survey many students in kerala go to other states for higher education students coming to kerala from outside is negligible the report said the report said that higher education in kerala should be made capable of meeting the increasing opportunities generated by the market for meeting the needs state must introduce various industrybased and innovative courses at higher education level in order to ensure the quality of higher education serious and focused attempts must be made to ensure that the number of arts and science colleges with accreditation of national assessment and accreditation council and engineering colleges with accreditation of national board of accreditation are increased likewise the possibility of collaboration with foreign universities and nationally renowned institutions can be explored it stated students enrolled in various arts and science colleges excluding unaided colleges under the four general universities in kerala in 201819 was 328 lakh of this 22 lakh 68 were girls of the total students enrolled for degree courses 472 enrolled for ba courses 366 enrolled for bsc and 162 for bcom girls constituted 68 of the total enrollment for degree courses genderwise distribution of enrollment reveals boys proportion in bcom course was higher than bsc and ba