“A 2006 evaluation of universities and research institutes all over the world… has not a single Indian university in the world’s top 300”
India has been widely hailed for being the second fastest growing economy in the world, with an 8%+ GDP growth over the past few years, before the current global financial crisis set in. There is a gradual transition towards a knowledge economy from the current status of a service-oriented economy. Highly skilled knowledge workers are the fuel required to drive this transition. The need for quality education has never been so acutely felt before. So let’s look at the Indian education system to find out what’s the ground reality.
2001 government statistics hold the national literacy to be around 64.84%. The rate of increase of literacy is more in rural areas than in urban areas. Female literacy was at a national average of 53.63% whereas the male literacy stood at 75.26%. Within the Indian states, Kerala has shown the highest literacy rates of 90.02% whereas Bihar averaged lower than 50% literacy, the lowest in India. The 2001 statistics also indicated that the total number of ‘absolute non literates’ in the country was 30.4 crore.
India has made a huge progress in terms of increasing primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately two thirds of the population. Although no Indian university made to the top 300 of the Chinese-conducted Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2006,three Indian universities/institutes were listed in the Times Higher Education list of the world’s top 200 universities — Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2005 and 2006.Six Indian Institutes of Technology and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science - Pilani were listed among the top 20 science and technology schools in Asia by Asiaweek. The Indian School of Business situated in Hyderabad was ranked number 15 in global MBA rankings by the Financial Times of London in 2009.while the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been recognized as a global leader in medical research and treatment. The private education market in India is estimated to be worth $40 billion (about Rs. 2, 00,000 crore, almost double the size of the FMCG market in India) in 2008 and will increase to $68 billion by 2012, according to reports.
There are 1,346 degree-granting engineering colleges in India with an annual student intake of 440,000, plus 1,244 polytechnics with an annual intake of 265,000. The higher education systems in India comprise of more than17000 colleges, 20 central universities, 217 State Universities, 106 Deemed to Universities and 13 institutes of national importance. This number will soon inflate as the setting up of 30 more central universities, 8 new IITs, 7 IIMs and 5 new Indian Institutes of Science are now proposed.
However things are not all that hunky-dory as they might appear at the outset. Thousands of crores of rupees have been pumped into the education sector, which continues to be a state subject, every year since independence. Every year the annual budget allocates astronomical amounts for primary and secondary education but any significant qualitative improvement still remains to be seen, especially in the primary education arena. Despite growing investment in education, 40% of the population is illiterate and only 15% of the students reach high school. As of 2008, India’s post-secondary high schools offer only enough seats for 7% of India’s college-age population, 25% of teaching positions nationwide are vacant, and 57% of college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree. The Gross Enrollment Ratio in Indian higher education is estimated to be about 12.4%, as compared to estimated world average of 26%. We may boast of our IITs and IIMs to be the centres of excellence in education in India but even they are fraught with several administrative and infrastructural problems, which prevent them from being the global centres of educational excellence like Harvard, Stanford and other Ivy League universities. About 500 students refused to take admission in the newly set-up IITs owing to poor infrastructure and inadequate faculty forcing the HRD ministry to rethink on setting up more IITs and IIMs.
In the Union Budget 2009 a substantial hike in the Plan Budget for higher education, a new loan interest subsidy scheme and scholarships for university-level education, along with a National Mission in Education through ICT are some of the key features. Education has been allocated Rs 36, 400 crore with Rs 26,800 being earmarked for school education and Rs 9,600 crore for higher education. The allocation, including the non-plan component, is Rs 44,528.21 crore, up 19 per cent. But the funds are not spent fully in most cases. Reasons cited are that the state governments do not release funds in time or the implementing agencies are inefficient and only wake up to expenditure at the end of the year before the reporting process begins. The government has certainly been ordinary in its achievements in the primary education sector. A host of programs like the Universal Primary Education, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan etc. have not yielded desirable results. There is certainly no significant improvement at the grass-root level i.e. primary schools in the rural areas, where still 65% of India lives.We no more require “just literates” in this age of science and technology.
By radical reforms, three things are imminent. These are deregulation, globalization and privatization. The liberalisation process started way back in 1991 has helped India become one of the most happening economies in the world with considerable development across all sectors. However a similar liberalisation process in education is drastically needed to sustain India’s 8%+ GDP growth for the next 3 to 4 decades to achieve the status of an economically developed nation, ready to take on anyone, in any field.
1. Deregulation: We need to have a single umbrella regulator named Education Regulatory and Development Authority with 100% authority to regulate the various players and create a level playing field for all the “for-profit” and “not-for-profit” players in this area, thereby ensuring the overall quality standards. It should not pose unnecessary barriers on the entry of domestic or foreign players. It should stress on educating the students by coming up with authentic quality ratings for all the institutions and let them decide on their own. However, it must take strong action against unscrupulous and fly-by-night operators.
2. Globalization:”What Dr Manmohan Singh did to the economy in 1991, should be done to the education sector in 2009,” said Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, on the sidelines of the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers. The government is encouraging reputed foreign universities to set up base in India so as to upgrade the quality of higher education and stem the exodus of students to foreign shores, which is an welcome move by all means. The IITs and the IIMs should also be allowed to set up campuses abroad to foster globalization of quality Indian education.
3. Privatisation: The entire primary education sector needs to be privatized. Education is too critically important for the future of India for it to be left to the government. In today’s world, more than ever, education is a dynamic service. It requires innovation, creativity, entrepreneurial talent, risk-taking ability and human resources—all of which are sorely missing in the government. Corporate foundations, under corporate social responsibility, have done a commendable job in providing elementary education in the remotest of villages in India like the Infosys foundation. This fact adds to the credibility of the above idea.
The consequences of privatization are manifold. The supply of educational services will increase, the quality will improve, and prices will come down. These are all everyday first-order efficiency effects of letting markets work. Secondly, there will be increased productivity, increased production, and better allocative efficiency within the sector. Thirdly, benefits will arise from the increasing returns to scale associated with the production of education. Finally, there are very important forward and backward linkages that bind the sector with the overall economy. One of them is the use of information and communications technology (ICT) tools. It will give a boost to the IT sector in a way that is unthinkable in any other endeavor. Companies like Educomp and NIIT have leveraged the opportunities available in this area to make profits by providing digital lessons and computer hardware to rural Indian schools.
Access to quality primary education must be made free for all those who cant afford it so that the goal of social equality can be achieved. Quotas in premier institutes is just a quick-fix solution with catastrophical repercussions. There needs to be a paradigm shift from rote-learning to conceptual learning with better teaching aids by creating an environment where learners can ignite their inherent desire to learn. The evaluation system which is heavily marks-based, needs to be replaced by one that tests the students’ conceptual clarity and innovative thinking. We can certainly take many cues from the American higher education system in this regard.
Nothing short of a radical surgery of the entire education system is required if India has to “really” compete with China and other developing economies. It is beyond doubt that we Indians are highly talented, but we need to have that necessary education system that can produce the likes of CV Raman, Amartya Sen, NR Narayana Murthy and others, in more numbers. Lastly, although this is an issue of considerable debate and controversy, affirmative action is absolutely essential. After the Green Revolution and the Telecom Revolution , India seriously needs an Education Revolution that shall catapult it from the quagmire of poverty and mediocrity to the zenith of prosperity and brilliance.
References:
- 1. www.wikipedia.org
- 2. Atanu Dey’s blog
- 3. www.forbes.com
- 4. World Bank’s India Education Report, 2008
- 5. Union Budget 2009 speech.
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Note:
Certain statistical figures and a few lines which better expressed my views have been quoted as they are. I duly acknowledge the concerned authors.
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