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Govt funding, a welcome step
Highlights
It is heartening to note the Centre’s recent decision to select ten higher education institutes having a potential and provide these with substantial funding over the next four years to improve their quality. These institutes are expected to be granted funds ranging from Rs 100-Rs 500 crore so these can create world class research infrastructure and laboratories. Obviously, this has been intended to enable them to storm into the 100 or 150 global academic rankings.
It is heartening to note the Centre’s recent decision to select ten higher education institutes having a potential and provide these with substantial funding over the next four years to improve their quality. These institutes are expected to be granted funds ranging from Rs 100-Rs 500 crore so these can create world class research infrastructure and laboratories. Obviously, this has been intended to enable them to storm into the 100 or 150 global academic rankings.Some of the top ranking IITs as in Delhi, Mumbai, Madras, Kanpur and Kharagpur, besides the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore are among the institutions identified so far for the grant of funds. It is worth mentioning that in a recently released survey of Times Higher Education, BRICS and Emerging Economies, Indian educational institutes occupy 16 places among the top 200 universities among which are the IITs of Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and Kanpur.
As is well known, China and South Korea have quite a few institutes among the top 100 in the world. Both countries as also Singapore have invested considerably with funding and policy support to endure quality upgrade in higher education. The Modi Government’s initiative in this direction is no doubt well intentioned though such endeavour should have been taken up much earlier by previous governments. In the present rankings, China has five institutes among the top 10 followed by two from South Africa and one each from Taiwan, Brazil and Russia. Even Taiwan has done better than India with 24 universities in top 200.
One needs to ponder here about the plan of the present government towards the other higher educational institutes who are in the top 50 or 60 in the country. Lack of resources is a big problem for these and many other institutes and starving them of funds would have an adverse impact on the education system. There are far too many universities in the country and it is expected that there should be some sort of uniform standards.
It is pertinent to note that the national Knowledge Commission (NKC) while arguing for the establishment of an Independent Regulatory Authority in Higher Education (IRAHE) to take over the functions of the UGC, AICTE, NCTE, MCI etc. had made number of recommendations regarding financing of higher education. These include: Increase government support for higher education to at least 1.5 per cent of GDP from the present level of 1.15 per cent; Autonomy of universities to set student fees level, tap other sources and allow commercial use of facilities lake land; Student fees should meet at least 20 per cent of total expenditure of universities; Engage professional firms to generate alumni contribution and license fees and permit entry of foreign institutions in India and promotion of Indian institutions abroad.
The 12th Plan approach paper echoed this view and mentioned a target of public spending of one per cent of GDP on higher education and 0.5 per cent on technical education. The Working Group on Higher &Technical Education for the 12th Plan projected a resource requirement of Rs 413,367 crores which obviously would require innovative and newer avenues of funding (Narayana Murthy Committee, 2012).
Special attention should be paid to the problem of mushrooming of private centres of higher education and charging of high fees. This is so as one can safely say that in 40-50 per cent of cases, the quality and methodology of teaching and conducting examinations is rather poor. There is no monitoring of standards by any authority or by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The Central Advisory Board of Education Committee (CABLE, 2005) on Financing of Higher Education in its report aptly observed that “growth of self-financing courses in higher education institutions and private higher education should be regulated to avoid vulgar forms of commercialization”. Another important development that needs to be welcomed is the Supreme Court calling for an end to the reservation system in all institutions of higher education. Justices Dipak Misra and PC Pant noted (on October 28) that despite several reminders to the Centre and State governments to make merit the primary criterion for admissions to super specialty courses, reservation was still being given preference over merit.
The obvious problem with reservation is that it dilutes the process of teaching. This has been aptly pointed by K L Chopra, former Director of IIT, Kharagpur: “While the hallmark of teaching in good institutions is the total autonomy of teachers to teach what they think is the frontier for professionals of the future, this is just not possible when 50 per cent of students do not even understand English. Good teachers, therefore, are demoted to the level of a school teacher”.
Apart from funds, the basic factor that is needed to improve performance and quality is to give more autonomy to these institutions and less interference – whether by political leaders or bureaucrats. The other major factor is the content of the courses which has to be in tune with modern paradigms and recent advances in different spheres. But it also needs to be pointed out that merely following Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge is not necessary in reforming or formulating our courses.
Dhurjati & Oishee Mukherjee
-INFA
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