Higher education policy in India

Here are my high-level impressions from OpenForum's discussion on higher education policy in india.

1. India did quite a reasonable job so far on expansion of higher education. Cost of educating an engineer is the lowest in India! While the quality of education is indeed suspect, the world's hunger for more and more engineers has been met quickly by the Indian education sector.
2. What's really sad is that the government is still stuck with the idea that education should not be profit-oriented and hence, in india, only non-profits organizations such as trusts can open colleges. Apparently, this is the case elsewhere as well but I feel it is terrible for India because it shuts out actors like TATA and Reliance from education. We cannot have a chain of Reliance colleges, all sharing common infrastructure.

Running notes from Higher Education Policy Discussion

• Expansion

  • 10% enrolment in higher education

    Only 30% of stength in engg. medicine and management education where private expenditure is 85%

    PhD - 0.5%, PG - 8% of overall graduate population

    Per university, we only have 4000 students?!

    65% engg. enrolments in southern states; not the case for overall higher education

    • Is english a determinant?

    govt. expansion is very low

    Education is defined as state responsibility

    • Maharashtra: high % of budget going to education?

    Personal expenditure needs to be taken into account, because % of personal income spent on kids education is quite high

    As % of total adult population,

    While expansion is happening, it is skewed by region/groups

    My observations

    • Random expansion, based on need of the hour?
    • Skew in higher education towards engg. Medicine, Management need more attention if not arts.
    • Relevance of higher education in rural areas?

    Only 5 engg colleges in UP until mild 90s

    Are new IITs, IIMs an answer to expansion needs?

    Expansion into sectors that are not in "demand" is a government issue

    Unlike in nehruvian era, educational expansion doesn't seem to be by design

    Focus is on number expansion rather than on efficiency improvements

    • How many students is each university catering to?

    Rayudu's observations

    • Initial focus on education was to produce civil servants
    • But today, more than 50% of the economy is services-centric
    • Govt's focus was on access to elementary education
    • Socialist leanings meant - Education was seen as out of bounds for private investment
    • 1986, 1991-92: Privatization allowed where there was a manpower crunch
    • Very low cost in producing a graduate!
    • Cartels in medicine and CA stopped expansion

    People's aspirations drove expansion areas

    • Globalization impacted this

    725,000 seats in engg., 400,000 in ploytechnic

    Summary

    • Govt. should limit to balancing acts
    • Expansion did not happen in all areas
    • Rural expansion: is it required? how should statistics be read?
• Inclusion
• Quality
  • Engineering education acting as a proxy for ...?
  • Degradation in quality where market drivers are not there
  • Accreditation
    • Institutional level accreditation - NAC
    • NBA - by AICTE - certifies at program level

      • Until 2004

        • 70 metrics under 8 categories

        57 metrics now

        • About 19 independent factors

        Should be predominantly process and input oriented - but seems to mix some output metrics that are not fully controllable by the program that is being accredited

        Problem in one metric can be overcome by better prerformance in other metrics, bcos total score is used for accreditation

        Marking is subjective even if some of the metrics are objective

    • Globally, is document-intensive but not in india
  • Faculty availability
  • Syllabus and examinations are controlled externally. This hurts teacher-student relationship
  • Industry not involved in definition of metrics
• Policy
• Trade
  • India, china account for large % of the buying community
  • $30B of eductation import/export trade globally
  • India imports about $800M - $1B
  • 140,000 indian students go abroad per year
  • 17000 students come to india for education
• Cost recovery
  • Only 20% in govt. inst.
    • Goal is about 25% internationally
  • 100% in private
  • Lots of regulation in place
    • Admissions
    • Fee structure
    • Programs
  • Scholarships not favored of late by the govt.
    • Loans are preferred
• Other notes
  • Common entrance tests have effected the chances of weaker sections
  • My thoughts
    • Public/Private framework for education business
      • Rewards in the form of jobs
      • Industry needs to define quality metrics
    • Education bubble?
      • Bubble burst will lead to better policy frameworks?
    • Trickle down effect on quality?
      • Real choice for students will only come after awareness campaigns
    • Capacity
      • Distance education
      • Investment intensive?
      • Chains of institutions
        • Reuse of lessons
        • Reliance? :-)
    • Demand
      • Indirect impetus to arts and humanities