Indian higher education has been one of the major
national issue of concern during recent years due to various reasons. Never in
the 64 years history of independence, higher education could attract so much
attention at the national level.
India’s burgeoning two trillion economy can not sustain
its robust growth unless supply of globally competitive and talented manpower is
assured for coming decades. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC) 2006-09
under the chairmanship of Sam Pitroda in its final report submitted in 2009
opined that there is a quiet crises in higher education in India which sums deep. The time has
come to address this crises in a systemic and forthright manner.1
When UPA-II came into power in 2009, Kapil Sibal was
made incharge of MHRD. After joining the MHRD, he has said very emphatically that
he would initiate reforms to Indian Education in the similar zeal shown by Dr.
Manmohan Singh in reforming the Indian Economy during the post-1991.
During the first 100 days of his tenure at MHRD, Kapil
Sibal made several announcements and assured the nation that the major
recommendations of NKC and the Yash Pal
Committee would be implemented by his ministry during the 11th plan
itself. His articulation on educational reforms was widely welcomed and excited
the intelligentsia to a large extent.
There has been nation wide debate on the directions and
implications of higher education reforms proposed by the MHRD under the
stewardship of Kapil Sibal. His proposal attracted diverse reactions from state
governments, university teachers and eminent educationists. Recently Sam
Pitroda has expressed his serious concern about poor implementation of the
major recommendations of NKC. He was addressing a national conference of
vice-chancellors called by the MHRD which was held at Delhi on March 25, 2011.
Since the XI Five Years Plan will be completed by 2012,
it is worth stock taking whether we could achieve various targets of this plan
on higher education. It is also pertinent to review the progress of higher
education reforms for the last two years. Private sector has been assigned a
very active role by the NKC and the Planning Commission.
Hence there is a need to assess whether there is a complete
clarity in policy formulation and its implementation with regard to various
issues related to higher education. According to Edge-2011 Report by Ernst
& Young, the private sector accounted for 63 percent of all higher
education institutions in 2006.
Assuming limitations of government’s resources available
for future growth of higher education and also ever rising interests of the private
sector in setting up new institutions in higher education, there will be a need
for clear cut national policy about the respective roles of public and private
sectors in higher education.
The current status of Indian Higher Education presents
both promises and pit falls. During the last dacade the number of students pursuing
higher education in India has increased from 8.4 million to 16.0 million which
accounts almost 20 percent of the global population of university and college
students. We have 26478 higher education institutions which are four times of U.S. institutions.
Our current Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) is 13 percent which is much less than
23 percent GER of China. It is also lagging behind 21 percent GER of BRIC
Nations and 26 percent global average. One of the major reason for our poor GER
is our low spending on higher education. Our public spending on higher
education is 0.6 percent of GDP which is much less than required. Lack of
quality in Indian Higher Education is a big problem. According to NAAC data,
only 11 percent universities and colleges meet the criteria to qualify for
Grade ‘A’ rating.
Our country can feel pride in producing some of the
finest brains for foreign universities where they are respected for their
thought leadership. Amartya Sen, P.N. Bhagawati, Ramkrishnan, Late C.K.
Prahlad, Nitin Noharia, Ram Charan, Dipak Jain, Anil Gupta, Nirmalya Kumar,
Jagdish Seth are few examples. But do we have world class universities and
institutions?
According to ranking of top 200 universities of the
world published by the Times Higher Education (2010), US had 72, UK 29, Canada
9, China 6, Japan 5, Hong Kong 4, and Singapore 2.
None of Indian Universities could find a place in this list. Main criteria for
getting place in this list is producing world class research by the university.
Why our universities and centres of academic excellence such as IITs, IISc and
IIMs are unable to compete with universities of China, Hong Kong and Singapore
which have made progress only recently?
While discussing success or failure of reforms in Indian
Higher Education, we have to seek answer to this question. It seems that our
universities and higher education institutions are too much pre-occupied with
teaching and producing poor quality degree holders.
Higher education in India has played an important role
in producing millions of engineers, managers, teachers, accountants, scientists,
administrators and others who are running our factories, offices, scientific
labs, schools, colleges, farms. Today Indian I.T. industry is respected
worldwide for which credit should be given to hundreds of engineering colleges
and IITs which produced thousands of engineers and software developers with
requisite skills and competencies.
Resilience and robustness of Indian economy is largely
dependent on our higher education institutions. Higher education in India is also
credited as a catalyst for social change because it makes it possible for youths
from down trodden or poor middle class strata, to dream big and to translate
dreams into reality.
Higher education in India assumes further importance
due to growing significance of knowledge industries and services in the
globalised economy. Capital or natural resources are now relatively less
important for sustainable growth of a nation than the trained and talented
manpower. According to Ernst & Young, current spending on higher education
in India
may be around ` 46,200 crores which is likely to increase to ` 150,000 crore by
the year 2020.
Highly education is not only critically important for
Indian economy, it can make our country a big player in global higher education
by the end of this dacade. Currently around 100 million students are enrolled
worldwide in higher education. By 2020, it is likely to rise to 200 million. If
planned efforts are made by both governments and private education service
provider, India
can be made a hub for higher education by the year 2020 in disciplines like engineering,
management, medical, pharmacy and social sciences. We will have to develop
clusters of would class institutions in 100 cities where foreign students could
study comfortably.
If we could attract few lacs foreign students every year,
India
can become a hub for higher education by 2020. It may look a gigantic task but
it is possible if we have a national will for achieving it. Singapore and Dubai are two examples where proactive
government policies made these city nations as global destination for higher
education.
The Reform
Agenda of MHRD
Indian Higher Education has been facing a big policy
vacuum for a long period. Our university system, mostly designed on British
model could not manage the massive expansion of higher education held during the
last two dacades. The number of students
in higher education increased from 49 lakh in 1990 to 1.60 crore in 2010. Since
2009, there has been a rush for reforms in higher education. It was overdue for
a long time. There are nine bills formulated by the MHRD for enacting several
higher education reforms. These bills are at various stages before becoming
acts of parliament. These bills are (i) The Foreign Educational Institutions
(Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, (ii) The Prohibition of Unfair
Practices in Technical Educational Institutions, Medical Educational
Institutions and University bill, 2010, (iii) The Educational Tribunals Bill,
2010, (iv) The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher
Educational Institutions Bill 2010, (v) The Universities for Innovation Bill
2010, (vi) The National Commission For Higher Education and Research (NCHER)
Bill, 2010, (vii) The Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual
Property Bill 2008, (viii) National Academic Depository Bill.
Ideology of
Reform Agenda
It may be pertinent to note that higher education
reforms proposed by MHRD are not a sudden development. During the post
liberalization era, the government policy on education was under pressure for
not following market led reforms. There are three major reports on higher
education submitted by three high-profile committees appointed by the Union
Government during last dacade. They were – The Ambani – Birla Committee, The
National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and The Yashpal Committee. First two
committees suggested to the Union Government that the private sector should be
assigned a greater role in higher education. Yashpal Committee favored less
regulation of universities by the government and advocated self- regulation.
If we examine the basic ideas behind objectives laid
down in all bills proposed by MHRD, we may find a common thread of ideology.
The first and foremost idea is that the government should focus on primary and secondary
school education by leaving higher education to markets upto a large extent. An
underlying assumption is establishing altogether new organizations rather than
reforming existing institutions. While setting up ‘new institutions’, high
degree of autonomy has been proposed. It can be seen that in every bill a
‘quick-fix solution has been envisaged to a particular problem of higher
education which does not provide a long-term or holistic vision for higher
education.
The most glaring feature of all these bills is that MHRD
has not done a nation wide consultation with all stake holders. Since state
governments have constitutional power to manage higher education at state
levels, at least they should have been taken on board before formulating these
bills. This is the reason why several state governments under opposition
parties have not liked some of the bills because their powers on higher
education institutions and universities are likely to be curbed by these bills.
