Higher education in a fix

Higher education today is an important factor for building a knowledge-based economy which has tremendous potential to create various employment opportunities for youth and also ensure better standards of living for people. The material advantages apart, higher learning is a catalyst for rational and scientific thinking in people which is a task that school education cannot accomplish. As Martin Luther King Jr said, "The goal of true education is to teach intensive and critical thinking". Intellectual manpower can play a vital role in building a strong nation and at the very least, India deserves it.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) have helped increase transition rates from schools to colleges. But issues of expansion and quality in the system continue to defeat the goal of higher education i.e., academic excellence with productive outcomes. Educational hubs like Delhi, Chandigarh and Pondicherry do not reflect the real picture of higher education in the country. The commercialisation of education can be best-witnessed in these places as they have become a much sought-after destination for students as well as private investors. The fact is that more than half of students pursuing higher learning are enrolled in private institutions that thrive in the education business. Students from affluent sections find their way out abroad. According to UNESCO data, the total number of Indian students pursuing higher education has gone up from 66,713 in 2000 to 3,01,406 in 2016. RBI data reveals that spending by Indians studying overseas has gone up by 44 per cent from USD $1.9 billion in 2013-14 to USD $2.8 billion in 2017-18. Can the poor afford higher education? Can millions of our young people nurture dreams of making it big in life? Perhaps we need to understand the problems before exploring a way forward.

In the contemporary world, levels of higher education reflect the socio-economic advancement of countries. India's GER (Gross Enrolment Ratio) at 26.9 per cent is way behind those of developed countries. UK, Sweden, Canada, Russia, Argentina and Brazil have a GER between 50 to 80 per cent, a stage India might take decades to reach, at least at the current rate. Issues of 'Access' and 'Equity' stand in the way of a uniform GER across India. Availability of higher learning institutions and growth in GER have a strong relationship as witnessed in some southern states, Maharashtra and hilly States like Manipur, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh. However, socio-cultural factors also play a role in the expansion of higher education. Central and Eastern India and some pockets of Northeast are lagging behind with lower GER than the national average. A strategy with a roadmap aimed at capacity building and attitudinal changes is important in these states. Similarly, GER among scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and women in general, are much lower than the national averages which also triggers 'equity' concerns. Higher studies are too ambitious a venture for these sections to pursue, let alone professional qualifications. Focused state support by way of scholarships and hostel facilities throughout the courses can only make a difference.

Academic excellence, the hallmark of higher learning, is, unfortunately, another area that majority of our institutions lag behind vis-à-vis their counterparts in developed countries. In Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking, only nine Indian institutions have featured in Top 500 of the world; eight of them are IITs and the other is Delhi University. Not surprisingly, the essential components such as research, internationalisation and better perception haven't received due encouragement in India. Investment in R&D in developed countries is not just limited to public funding alone, the private sector too has spent generously and as a result, universities and industries grow together with a symbiotic relationship. Gross Domestic Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) as a percentage of GDP shows that countries like the USA (2.74 per cent), Japan (3.14 per cent) and China (2.11 per cent) have invested far more than India (0.62 per cent). No wonder that institutions in these countries are world-class. Development of knowledge-based areas like pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare, IT, etc., is pathetically neglected in India. We need to intensify and expand research-oriented higher education in the country if we are serious about building a knowledge-based economy.

Research publications are scientific findings that directly benefit various fields of economic development. In quantitative and qualitative research, USA with 6,83,000 global research publications, China with 5,99,000 and UK with 2,11,710, secure first three places while India settles for the fifth position. China has the maximum number of PhDs, (58,000) which is more than that of US (55,000) while India has only 34,000 PhDs which is frugal in terms of demographic parallels. The role of independent quality assurance mechanisms like NAAC and NBA whose mandate is to assess the strength of academic institutions is limited in our country as institutions enjoy the freedom of choice for accreditation. Only 39 per cent of all universities and 20 per cent of eligible colleges have been accredited so far by these two bodies.

Another serious issue is that in spite of having 993 universities and 37,643 colleges and even as the student intake has increased phenomenally over the last decade, we couldn't address the appalling dearth of teaching staff. 6,600 posts of professors are vacant in central universities, a shortfall of 33 per cent, while there are 35 per cent and 38 per cent posts vacant in IITs and state universities respectively. Ban on recruitments and lack of funds are no more than handy excuses to justify the entrenched apathy. Pedagogic needs are addressed by part-time teachers compromising quality and academic rigour. In a scenario of this nature, the culture of questioning and reasoning — raison d'être of higher learning — after all, cannot be inculcated in our students.

Basking in the glory of our relatively better performance in the school education sector cannot be a prudent state of mind any more than letting anarchy and apathy rule higher education sector. School education is only a basic requirement whereas higher education is the motor force for socio-economic development that can promise a future for millions of our young people. The worrisome fact is that in the last ten years (2007-2017), investment in higher education has declined as a percentage of GDP from 1.14 per cent to 0.71 per cent. In contrast, Brazil with 6.4 per cent, South Africa at 6.1, Australia at 5.32 and China at 4.26 per cent of GDP are way ahead of us. We are not even close to the world average of 4.81 per cent. Our planning likely lacks a sense of proportion. Increased public and private expenditures are a sine qua non for meeting out the infrastructural and institutional requirements. Finally, the epithet of 'Inspector Raj' shouldn't take away our motivation in exercising control on 'certificate' provider institutions and 'profit-making' education markets. Of late, the Ministry of HRD has come up with an ambitious five-year vision document for 2019-24 named 'Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Program' (EQUIP), which is aimed at improving the scenario of higher education with focused interventions in areas of concern. We can only hope that the 'vision' wouldn't end up as another 'dream'.

KDP Rao is a former Additional Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh. Views expressed are strictly personal