A prescription for the ailing education sector
The Supreme Court has missed an opportunity to clean the dirt that stains the University system, both public and private
The Supreme Court’s 2014 new year order in the form of a University Grants Commission (UGC) review of 44 deemed universities has ensured more mental trauma for lakhs of students and applicants. Though it has not approved or disapproved of the infamous Tandon Committee, it has made a statutory body, the UGC, subservient to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD).
In June 2009, the MHRD rightly empowered the UGC, which had inspected the deemed universities before, to review the maintenance of standards in these institutions. The UGC had appointed different committees consisting of former vice-chancellors, senior professors from IITs and nominees from relevant statutory bodies. The committees visited all the deemed universities, and after a comprehensive analysis, submitted detailed reports on each university to the UGC. The inspection reports were accepted in the UGC’s meetings in October and November 2009, and copies were sent to the concerned universities for immediate follow-up action and compliance within three months. The joint secretary of the MHRD represents the Ministry at the UGC meetings and is party to all these proceedings.
An arm-chair report
Despite the UGC having solitary statutory power as specified in the UGC Act of 1956 to review functioning of universities, including the deemed universities, the MHRD arrogated itself the authority, and during July 2009, constituted the Tandon Committee comprising four retired academics. The Tandon Committee directed the deemed universities to make an oral presentation in New Delhi for 20 minutes and interacted for about 10 minutes with the representatives. The committee considered nine parameters for review and awarded scores of 5, 3, 1 and 0. It did not visit any institution and, on an arm-chair basis, categorised the universities as either ‘A’ (scores greater or equal to 30), ‘B’ (greater or equal to 18), or ‘C’ (less than 18).
The details of the entire process was not shared with the universities. Only when the committee recommended withdrawal of the deemed university status for those placed in the ‘C’ category were the universities rudely informed of the decision. They immediately filed writ petitions in the Supreme Court in 2009 challenging the constitution of the committee and the method adopted by it in awarding grades, alleging arbitrariness and discrimination. The Supreme Court restored status quo ante in its order in January 2010. Since then, the matter has been heard over 20 times and over two dozen interim orders have been passed with no conclusive decision in sight.
Based on one of the orders passed by the Court in April 2011, the MHRD constituted another committee — the Thakur committee — headed by the Secretary of the Ministry, Ashok Thakur, to individually review the 44 deemed universities and submit a report. The MHRD ensured that the process adopted by the Thakur Committee had the direct effect of the Tandon Committee’s findings. This was a rude shock to all the deemed universities as the Thakur Committee pointed out a fundamental flaw in the Tandon Committee’s scoring. It wrote in its report: “The rationale of weight of 5, 3, 1 and 0 for ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘fair’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ was also looked into carefully. Since this had a deficiency — that [the] ‘fair grade’ was only one point ahead of the ‘unsatisfactory’ grade whereas other grades had a two-point difference with their next lower grade — instead of assigning 5, 3, 1, 0 weights to the four grades, 4, 3, 2, 1 weights have been assigned to all the points calculated for the 126 deemed universities.”
Unfortunately, the Thakur Committee did not set right the “deficiency” by recategorising the deemed universities based on the new scoring. Having reduced the maximum possible score from 45 to 36, the committee stunned everyone by choosing to retain the Tandon Committee’s minimum score of 30 for ‘A’, 18 for ‘B’ and less than 18 for ‘C’. This was supported by unacceptable and inaccurate theories and clearly indicated that the committee did not wish to alter the findings of the Tandon Committee. Will anyone accept a theory where the maximum marks are reduced considerably but the passing mark is not reduced in the same proportion?
Acting strange is not new for the MHRD which embedded the innocuous Thakur Committee report as a ‘bystander entity’ in the Tandon Committee’s chaotic report of glaring arbitrariness and bias, some of which have been highlighted.
An institution which was conferred with the deemed-to-be-university status in March 2009 was granted the ‘A’ grade (maximum score of 5 for admission), even when it said voluntarily that it did not admit any students under the deemed university mode. Likewise, in the research parameter criterion, impact factors or h-index are taken into account along with SCOPUS/SCI data for assessing an institution for its research output.
The Tandon Committee conveniently ignored these parameters and awarded institutions with higher impact factor and/or h-index scores of 3 and 1 and those with lesser impact factor with a maximum score of 5. The partisanship continues. In the case of one deemed university, a member of the committee declared it unfit to be granted that status and asked for it to be an autonomous institution. However, to everyone’s shock, the university was placed in the ‘A’ category.
The entire Tandon Committee mechanism was kick-started because of a media sting operation exposing the admission malpractice in two deemed universities in Tamil Nadu, now being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. To these universities, the committee awarded the ‘B’ grade for their admission procedure. The ongoing second review to upgrade them from ‘B’ to ‘A’, despite the matter being sub judice , is liable for contempt of court, and is also infested with faults.
The Supreme Court missed an opportunity to clean the dirt that stains the university system — public & private. Passing an interim order on January 9, 2014, the Court ordered review of the 44 ‘C’ category universities and made it abundantly clear that the MHRD is not bound by the UGC review findings, thus reducing the UGC, a statutory body, to an advisory one. It may be legally correct but it has provided the much needed oxygen for the Tandon Committee, which submitted its resignation.
The country needs a systemic overhaul. The Supreme Court has prolonged the issue without reaching any finality. The MHRD must order for review of all the deemed universities, as undeserving ones have been placed in the ‘A’ category and deserving ones in the ‘B’ and ‘C’ categories. Also, the Tandon Committee’s report is not an elixir of immortality. It has expired but is still used, causing damage to policy making. Before policy making dies of harmful dosage of expired academic steroids, the MHRD must provide the antidote and reform the entire deemed universities and public universities system. The right prescription needs to be written.
Schools without children, children without schools
On the day the Chhattisgarh government issued a statement emphasising how the Prime Minister’s adviser, T.K.A. Nair, praised the efforts to educate children, 32 students of Koynapada primary school in Darbha block in Bastar district did not attend school. In fact, they could not as the school does not exist. An official confirmed that the disappearance of the school establishes how employees attached to the education department are benefiting from the insurgency.
Since 2007, Rs. 6.45 lakh has been given to the Gram Panchayat to construct the single-storied school building of Koynapada. The Panchayat may say that the rebels are not allowing the construction but there are no Maoists in Koynapada, the official says. Meanwhile, the school receives Rs. 3.95 per day for each of the 32 kids enrolled there. Around mid-day, a wooden pedal for husking, a few metal pots and a robust rooster alone occupy the the makeshift classroom, which can barely accommodate 10 children. Students have eaten and left, says the head teacher, Ghasiram More. The funds for the school have come from the government’s flagship programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Mr. More says several such schools exist on paper around Koynapada.
Why funds are given to non-existent schools remains a mystery but Mr. More’s repeated appeals to convert a school on paper to a real one have fallen on deaf ears.
Chintagufa residential school in Sukma district has a different problem. While the school has 200 students on paper, hardly 40 are to be seen. One teacher provides an explanation for this: “Some are unwell and [the] rest are on study leave.” Interestingly, in March last year, The Hindu visited the schools twice. On both occasions, there were no more than 50 students there. The school gets Rs. 950 for each of the students every month under the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission (RGSM). So, on paper, the school receives nearly Rs two lakh for the maintenance of children every month. Even if the school enrols 100 students, Rs. 95,000 cannot be accounted for every month. Sixty such residential schools are funded by the RGSM in Bastar division.
No lasting action
There is similar mismanagement in Chintalnar residential school, a few kilometres west of Chintagufa. Soon after a report in The Hindu last year, 10 teachers were sacked and a new single-storied building was constructed. Despite this, corruption in the name of tribal education takes place. A septic tank that was being constructed with poor quality material collapsed at Chintalnar during construction, says one of the teachers. The toilets are dysfunctional, forcing students to relieve themselves in front of the school at night and in the forest in the morning. The floor of the new building is peeling off, again because of poor quality material, state the building contractors. One contractor says 30 per cent of the fund goes to the officials as bribe.
Realising that it is beyond their capacity to eradicate corruption, the RGSM has decided to restrict the fund flow. “We released only Rs. 15 crore of the Rs.100 crore given to us in the last financial year. We are concerned about this pilferage,” Reena Kangale, chief of RGSM in Chhattisgarh, said.
But then Rs 15 crore is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. In the budget, the State government allocated 12 per cent of the outlay — a whopping Rs. 6,559 crore out of the total Rs. 54,661 crore — for school education. While a large portion of the budget will be used to pay salaries, at least Rs 2,000 crore will be spent on tribal education, said the Minister of School Education and Tribal Development, Kedar Kashyap.
Anganwadis (day care centres for children) fare equally poorly. The day the State’s Economic Survey predicted a massive surge in GDP, the children of at least two anganwadis in south Bastar spent another day going hungry. The two childcare centres in the villages of Pinnabheji and Misma in Sukma district saw a complete failure of programmes designed to combat malnutrition. While the centres are supposed to provide rice, lentil soup, grams, beans and molasses, none of these is available. “The food from the local distribution society has not been arriving for the last two months,” says Jayanti Biswas, a teacher at the Pinnabheji centre. The children wear tattered clothes and worn-out reading material hangs from the wall. In addition, a tribal woman working in the centre as an assistant to Ms Biswas has not received her monthly salary for the last two years. The blame for this is attributed to paperwork, but the woman seems unaware of this. The anganwadi next to Pinnabheji, Misma, is better maintained, but has no food either.
Social and psychological issues
Other factors affect the children of Bastar too. The old practice of tribals — of keeping children in residential schools — is debatable as a large number of them miss their families and often slip into depression. However, they never receive psychological support. UNICEF began working with them but also left the project mid-way, doing more harm than good, says one of their former project coordinators. Moreover, several cases of sexual violence have surfaced and the removal of two clinics of the International Committee of Red Cross from Sukma and Bijapur has intensified health problems in schools.
Teachers are a rarity in all these schools. At any given point of time, it is impossible to find more than 30 per cent of them in any school, unless the schools are located in district headquarters or around the main cities. The head teachers of the two dozen schools visited by this correspondent have never been available in the last few years. The three oft-cited reasons for their unavailability were: “they have gone to the district headquarters to receive or deliver mails”, “they’ve gone for training” or “the naxalites are harrassing them.”
Being aware of the mismanagement and corruption, two schools — in Chintalnarh and in Chintagufa — offered ‘any amount’ to this correspondent. That is the norm here, one of the head teachers said apologetically.
The Ramakrishna Mission of Narainpur (RKM), established in 1985, runs schools in the interior areas. The Maoists, in 1980, warned the swamijis to avoid them. The rebels have never harmed anyone in the organisation in the past three decades. However, after the last Assembly election, the RKM was warned by the rebels for housing paramilitaries in one of their schools in Kundla in Abujhmarh. “We told them [the Maoists] that we did not initiate lodging [of forces] but it created severe problems,” said sources in the Mission. Housing the paramilitary forces in the schools, especially during elections, has forced the Maoists to issue a permanent embargo on the construction of schools, the officials feel. However, there is enough evidence to suggest that the teachers are never hurt or harassed by the rebels.
The good news is that even after all this corruption and mismanagement, the tribals of Bastar continue to send their children to study in government schools. In a way, the conflict has provided an opportunity for the State to enhance the quality of education.suvojit.bagchi@thehindu.co.in
A Mission Rebuffing a Vision
Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan
The Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan is a mission-mode scheme launched by the Government of India to fund higher education. There is a mismatch between the diagnosis and the prescription in the document setting out the agenda of the mission. The diagnostic part reads like a well-versed critique of commercialisation and privatisation in higher education, but the solutions prescribed would result in a reinforced entry of the corporate sector into higher education.
Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) is a centrally-sponsored flagship scheme, conceived in mission mode, to fund state universities and colleges during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Five-Year Plans (see Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan: National Higher Education Mission, September 2013, available at http://mhrd.gov.in/rusa). In addition to providing funds, RUSA also seeks to elicit a number of policy, governance, administrative and academic prerequisites from the state governments. The RUSA mission is intended to subsume all the current schemes in higher education and in this process it would inevitably relegate the University Grants Commission (UGC) to the position of an advisory body, bereft of its current role and significance.
RUSA was introduced as the third tier of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and the subsequent Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), which are the existing mission-mode initiatives in elementary and secondary education, respectively. The RUSA mission has set for itself the goal of raising the country’s gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education from the current 18.8% to 30% by 2020.
Funding Higher Education
The crux of the government’s argument for introducing RUSA is that the UGC’s mandate allows it to fund only a limited number of institutions that come under Sections 12B and 2F of the UGC Act, and making amendments to the statutory provisions of the UGC Act would be a time-consuming process. UGC is also not allowed to channelise funds through the state government or through any entity other than an educational institution, which makes it impossible for the UGC to fund any planning and expansion activity through a state-level higher education body. The RUSA regime is thus expected to supplant the archaic and unfeasible system of grant disbursement currently under the UGC.
The national-level RUSA Mission Authority has the onus for policy planning, review and allocation of funds to the Project Approval Board. The Mission Authority will have the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) minister as its chairperson, the secretary of the Department of Higher Education (DHE) in the MHRD as the vice chairperson, the chairpersons of UGC, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), State Higher Education Councils (SHECs), three experts in higher education and the financial advisor to MHRD as members and the joint secretary (higher education) as member secretary.
A Project Approval Board will examine and approve state plans, assess performance of states and institutions and approve release of funds. It will have the secretary (higher education) as chairperson, the chairpersons of the UGC, AICTE, SHECs, two experts in higher education and the financial advisor to MHRD as members and the joint secretary (higher education) as convenor. The Technical Support Group (TSG), which will monitor flow of funds and information and provide operational support, will be a contractual body manned by professionals. The National Project Directorate will be located within the DHE in the MHRD and headed by the joint secretary as the National Project Director (NPD).
At the state level, RUSA will have the SHEC, Project Directorate, and the TSG and at the institutional level there will be a board of governors and a Project Monitoring Unit.
Funding through RUSA involves mandatory proportionate matching contributions in the centre-state ratio of 90:10 for north-eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir, 75:25 for other special category states (Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) and 65:35 for other states and union territories. The document notes that states do not spend an adequate proportion of their gross state domestic product (GSDP) on higher education and that the average is just 0.5% of GSDP at present. States would be free to mobilise private sector participation (including donations, philanthropic grants and public-private partnership (PPP) schemes) through innovative means, limited to a ceiling of 50% of the state’s share. The states are required to lift all bans on the recruitment of faculty and to also ensure that vacancies are filled in a time-bound manner.
Ensuring Quality
The states are also required to set up the accreditation agencies and make it mandatory for state institutions to go in for accreditation. It is also stipulated that funding should be contingent on accreditation. Accreditation should not be limited to universities and colleges but should be made mandatory for individual departments and programmes of a university. For this purpose, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) would act as a facilitator and a guide. The state accreditation agencies must be authorised by NAAC before commencing on an accreditation operation. The document also calls on states to adopt a tight-fisted policy on new private colleges in a sphere already saturated with private higher education enterprises.
The states must ensure that legislation as well as amendments to existing legislation are brought in to ensure the existence of state universities as autonomous independent entities. It also recommends a gradual withdrawal of the state from decisions on appointment of chairpersons of the executive council or vice chancellors and members of the executive council. To enforce its guidelines RUSA will also be using the principles of incentivising desirable actions of states and institutions and disincentivising undesirable actions.
The RUSA document states that there is a need to revisit the acts of various state universities to find out if there are clauses detrimental to their autonomy. The union government or the UGC may constitute a committee to frame a model University Act and statutes in this regard. A grace period of two to three years can be given to the states within which the amended Act and statutes can be brought into force. Setting a limit on the number of colleges that can be affiliated to a university, establishing College Cluster Universities and encouraging colleges to go autonomous are some of the measures suggested by the RUSA document to reduce the burden of the existing universities.
The document also notes that though private colleges increase access, the aims of equitable growth and quality enhancement are not necessarily fulfilled. Commercialisation of education has already led to huge distortions in the educational landscape, socially as well as spatially. The document reiterates that educational priorities cannot be left to vagaries of market forces.
RUSA envisages a set of academic reforms which contain the semester system, choice-based credit system, curricular revisions, continuous evaluation and cumulative grade point scores based on a 5- or 10-point scale.
The main agency through which RUSA will reach out to the state universities and colleges will be the SHEC, conceived as an autonomous body that will function at an arm’s length from the state and central governments. The RUSA regime confers a lot of powers on the SHECs. The regulatory functions endowed on the council involve that of preparing the state higher education plan, monitoring its implementation, evaluating state institutions on the basis of RUSA norms, carrying out faculty quality enhancement initiatives, protecting the autonomy of state institutions and certain advisory functions.
RUSA prescribes certain institution-level governance reforms as well. The project at the institutional level will be managed by two bodies; the board of governors (BOG) and a Project Monitoring Unit. Each institution will necessarily have its own BOG as per the State Universities Act or as per the guidelines issued by regulatory bodies or, as the case may be, either appointed by the sponsoring government or by itself through due procedure. Each institution will form an Institutional Project Monitoring Unit with appropriate representation from academic officials of the institution, faculty, senior administrative officers, technical and non-technical support staff and students. In the case of government-aided institutions, the funding would be in the ratio of 50:50 under the RUSA scheme.
Despite its detailed observations about the downsides of commercialisation of higher education, a whole chapter of the RUSA document is devoted to the role of the private sector in higher education. As already mentioned, states are given the freedom to raise up to 50% of their proportionate matching grant through private participation. The document expects the government to change its role from that of a provider of higher education to that of an agency that regulates the higher education sector. The document portrays PPP and viability gap funding (VGF) as redeeming models for the country’s higher education system.
The mismatch between the diagnosis and the prescription is a general feature of the RUSA document and programme. The diagnostic part reads like a well-versed critique of commercialisation and privatisation in higher education, but the solutions prescribed would result in a reinforced entry of the corporate sector into higher education.
Redundant UGC
It is evident that the UGC, which is a statutory body, is going to be relegated to a position of insignificance. Redundancy is the reason cited. But it is evident that the aim is to bypass statutory restrictions and ensure the unbridled entry of market forces. Likewise, state universities are also going to be dismantled and supplanted with bodies that have few or limited statutory obligations.
As mentioned earlier, the grant as well as allocation of RUSA funds is based on certain mandatory academic, administrative, governance and legislative reforms being carried out in the state higher education scenario. Such a comprehensive streamlining and wing clipping was never a part of SSA or RMSA, which are depicted as the first two tiers of educational reform in the country. The varying degrees of autonomy currently enjoyed by the universities is the result of a series of negotiations with regional realities. Uprooting the state universities from their regional contexts and pruning them in accordance with a national model would ultimately destroy the regional context that the state universities should uphold. Such a move is detrimental to federal principles that should be upheld in education. The whole programme looks like a coercive apparatus using conditional grants to wean state universities away from chalking out their unique trajectories of development.
The scheme accepts the fact that there is a need for planning in higher education focusing on the state as the basic unit. However, the states have absolutely no say in deciding the components of the scheme. Their role is restricted to that of submitting State Higher Education Plans in compliance with the various components of the scheme. This might result in dis-incentivising states. The document itself admits that the two centrally-sponsored schemes of the Eleventh Plan did not achieve success because the states thought the terms were strict and they also did not have matching grants to provide.
Questions of Autonomy
The status of the SHECs in states like Kerala, where it is fully functional, as of now, is that of an advisory body with the mandate to coordinate the activities of the government, the universities and other institutions of higher education and also to evolve new concepts in the field of higher education. Checks and balances were put in place to ensure that the activities of the higher education council (HEC) would not hinder the autonomous status of the universities.
However, RUSA envisages restructuring HECs as a planning, evaluating and monitoring body with a core role in channelising funds to universities and colleges. This would be detrimental to the very concept of autonomy of the university. Further, when the HEC is placed squarely on top of the universities, a question also arises of the democratic validity of a nominated body being placed above a democratically constituted body at least in the case of some of state universities.
Though the RUSA document waxes eloquent about autonomy, it ends up placing a highly bureaucratic structure on top of the country’s higher education pyramid. At the national level the RUSA Mission Authority, Project Approval Board, TSG and the National Project Directorate are to be headed mostly by bureaucrats and not academicians.
RUSA mandates that the states should set apart 4% of their GSDP for higher education. The current national average of state funding is a meagre 0.5% of GSDP. So it is a foregone conclusion that states would not be able to come up with the 35% proportionate matching grant from their side. Here RUSA comes in with a readymade solution which says that the states are permitted to raise upto 50% of their contribution from private entrepreneurs. So ultimately the funding division would be 65% from the centre, 17.5% from the state exchequer and 17.5% from private entrepreneurs. It is evident that the states are being forced to privatise their assets and go for PPP or receive no funds at all from the RUSA regime. A PPP-based intervention would definitely make higher education very expensive and might even create a negative impact on the GER in higher education.
Though the RUSA document blames privatisation of higher education for commercialising education and also for denying social justice, and calls on the state and universities to adopt a tight policy towards private players, it ultimately ends up recommending models like PPP and VGF, which would only pave the way for corporate takeover of higher education.
More children going to private schools: NCAER
The dropout rate remains troublingly high
Private school enrolment continues to rise, but the already low levels of what children are learning in schools — both government and private — continue to fall, new data shows.
The Hindu is reporting exclusively on the findings of the 2011-12 round of India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a representative national sample of 42,000 households, carried out by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
The previous round of the IHDS was conducted in 2004-05, allowing for a comparison of change over the last eight years using independently collected data.
The numbers show that enrolment in government schools now make up 65 per cent of all school enrolment, down from 72 per cent in 2004-05. Private school enrolment ranges from as high as 61 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir and 56 per cent in Uttar Pradesh to as low as 12 per cent in West Bengal and Odisha and 13 per cent in Bihar. It is higher among boys, in urban areas and among richer households.
Private school enrolment is increasing even though it is five times as expensive as going to a government school.
The average Indian family spends over Rs. 7,000 per year, per child enrolled in a private school as compared to less than Rs. 1,400 per child in a government school. Household expenditure on private schooling ranges from over Rs. 18,000 in Delhi to just over Rs. 3,500 in Uttar Pradesh.
Dropout rates high
Despite the success of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in bringing in near-universal primary school enrolment, the dropout rate remains troublingly high. About 40 per cent of teenagers above 15 years who made it to Class V said they dropped out before reaching Class IX, and another 40 per cent of those who reached Class X said they dropped out within a year.
Dropout rates are slightly higher for girls and far higher in rural areas, and have reduced very slightly since 2004-05. Bihar continues to have India's highest dropout rate.
To measure how many children are learning in school, the NCAER administers the test developed by NGO Pratham for its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). The results help test the ASER findings that have been criticised by the government which says its own surveys show better results.
The NCAER researchers found that just 52 per cent children between 8 and 11 years could read at a Class II level, and just 45 per cent could do a basic mathematical function, subtraction. This is a small fall since 2004-05 for which the numbers were 54 per cent and 48 per cent respectively.
Children in private schools learn more than in government schools, but not very much, and those in cities, belonging to richer households, and those who come from forward castes do better. These numbers largely corroborate the ASER’s findings.
Radically reforming higher education
The higher education sector in India cries out for reform. The public have flagged issues ranging from the politicisation of public institutions, a perceived lack of regulation of faculty and the desirability of creating knowledge as opposed to disseminating it. Some of these issues fall within the domain of governance; others under the ambit of regulation. As the institutions concerned vary in terms of scope and intent, it would make little sense to specify one governance structure and mechanism for all. However, there is only one regulatory body for India’s universities, the University Grants Commission (UGC). This makes it relevant to make proposals that can be implemented via this body.
Actually, a form of regulation of the faculty does exist: college lecturers are required to teach for around 16 hours a week. This must amount to at least three times the global average. It is anybody’s guess what the quality of these lectures is, given that young teachers have no time to prepare for them. Note that the suggestion of a cap on lecture hours is not motivated out of sympathy for lecturers as much as out of the concern that this mode of content delivery encourages passive attendance by students. To address this concern, tutorials should be instituted to complement lectures. This is not just to ensure that students have a second chance to comprehend difficult ideas, but to encourage them to actually communicate what they have learnt. Spoon-feeding spells the death of imagination, leaving young Indians far behind in the global race to creativity.
Faculty accountability
Much has been said about the lack of faculty accountability, especially in relation to high salaries following adoption of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. The surest way of inculcating it would be to institute student evaluation of courses. Globally, this practice is not only routine but its results are available in the public domain. There is no case for postponing its immediate implementation in India. It is important, however, that these evaluations are treated in the right spirit. They are not meant to control the lecturer as much as instil confidence in students. They are also meant to act as an incentive to better performance. Student evaluation of courses publicly displayed is the surest way of instilling accountability among faculty. It should also be taken into account when a lecturer comes up for promotion. All this would substantially take care of the problem flagged not only of teacher absenteeism but also of the poor quality of instruction. At the same time, once teachers have taught what was expected of them, made themselves available to meet students at pre-specified times, and participated in departmental duties, they must be left to their own devices. It is not clear what public interest is served by expecting lecturers to be present all day in buildings that have no individual offices, up-to-date libraries and computers or even decent toilets.
The purpose of a university is the creation of knowledge. As Indians are generally Anglophone, they have immediate access to a very large body of knowledge, which is not the case with those located in some other parts of the global south. However, in the republic of knowledge, we are largely consumers rather than producers. This is related to our approach to knowledge creation. A few years ago, the UGC instituted a form of research evaluation based on a points system. This approach to governing knowledge creation is subsumed under the metric Academic Performance Indicator (API), a quantitative summary of a lecturer’s output. Research itself is scored on the basis of a ranking of journals in which it is published. In practice, one of two approaches appears to have been followed. In one, the faculty adopts a scheme on its own. This runs the risk of majoritarianism or of compromise, neither of which are in public interest. A second approach is based on the ranking of journals according to their “impact factor.” Impact is calculated as the number of citations of articles in a journal in relation to the number of articles published in it. It was originally created as a tool to help librarians identify journals to purchase, not as a measure of the scientific quality of research in an article. In July 2013, a group of scientists and publishers issued a statement called the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). While identifying peer-reviewed papers as central to an evaluation of research output, they argued for eliminating the use of journal-based metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) in funding, appointment and promotion considerations. It was recommended that research ought to be assessed on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which it was published. It is significant that among the original signatories of DORA was the American Association for the Advancement of Science. We need to heed this call. Quantitative scoring based on JIF may wear the garb of objectivity, and cardinality may even bring with it the comfort of transparency to some, but it cannot be a substitute for assessing knowledge creation. The long-standing practice in India had been to have research peer-reviewed and these reports considered by a committee of experts. There should be a return to this practice as it is superior to the points-based system which prejudges content and quality. Finally, in issuing a guideline for assessing research, the UGC must focus exclusively on the researcher’s contribution to knowledge and cease privileging “foreign” publications over “Indian” ones and “international” conferences over “national” ones.
As the proof of the pudding is in the eating, a recent experience is worth recounting. An internationally decorated Indian academic was recently invited by Delhi University to participate in a selection interview for lecturers. His heart sank as he observed the abilities of the first set of interviewees. However, as the day wore on, his spirits lifted, for the quality of candidates steadily improved, and a suitable candidate finally emerged. Upon enquiry, our academic was told that the candidates had been presented to the selection committee in descending order of their API! The nation looks to the UGC to address the pathetic state of its higher education sector.
Letter To Smriti Irani
Anu Aga, Ashish Dhawan and Amit Chandra
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Five steps to take India's education system from mediocre to world class
Dear HRD minister, Congratulations on BJP's victory in the general elections. We now eagerly await the measures that your government will take to drive socio-economic prosperity for the country. As the government prepares for such measures, it is important to note that for any growth model to be successful we need an educated and skilled population. That's why PM Narendra Modi placed skills at the head of his “skill, scale and speed“ formula to transform India.As you assume your newly assigned responsibilities, we take this opportunity to share our perspective on five big reforms that could transform India's education system from a mediocre to a world-class system.
First, our education system currently suffers from an apparent `Licence Raj' that restricts entry and operation of private players. Even policies such as RTE neglect that private schools are a large part of the education ecosystem (already 40% of school students and 60% of college students are enrolled in private institutions). These norms have led to the shutdown of a large number of affordable private schools that serve lowincome students. The government must deregulate school education and treat government and private schools as equal partners in solving India's education crisis.
Second, it is important not only to invest more in education but to do so more strategically.
Central government should invest more resources in teacher education and development, principal training, ICT in education and assessments. It is also critical for the ministry of human resource development to rework its results framework document (RFD) to include student learning outcomes. Furthermore, a portion of the budget allocation to states should be contingent upon the adoption of progressive education policies and improvement of outcomes. There is an opportunity to create version 2.0 of the central education budget that shifts focus from inputs and outlays to outcomes and impact, while holding states accountable.
Third, improve quality standards through nationwide assessments. Assessments need to be at the core of any planning exercise for improving India's education system. The government should introduce statewide learning assessments that are undertaken at regular periods during a child's school journey , which can also contribute to remediation and improvement in teaching. Additionally , a school rating system should be instituted to set targets for school level improvements. The National Achievement Survey (NAS) should be revamped such that it becomes a barometer for student learning and the de facto benchmark for state performance.
Modi's government in Gujarat has already taken a lead in this regard with the Gunotsav programme, an accountability framework for quality of primary education that includes learning outcomes of children as well as co-scholastic activities, optimal use of financial resources and community participation. This model can be replicated in other states.
Fourth, equip school principals to become efficient school leaders. Great leaders make great institutions, in every sphere. In schools principals are the highest point of leverage, yet their role is often restricted to administrative functions. There is a need to reimagine the role of the principal as an instruc tional leader, rather than an administrator. Moreover, we need to institute stricter guidelines for recruitment of school leaders that prioritise merit over seniority . Gujarat has again taken the lead by establishing the headmaster eligibility test for selection of its principals. The government should set up centres for school leadership in every state and mandate induction as well as ongoing training for all principals.
Fifth, improve teacher quality for better learning outcomes. It is unfortunate that teaching today does not attract the best talent. We need public awareness campaigns in India that are able to effectively project teaching as a rewarding and meaningful profession. Centres of excellence need to be created for teacher education in prestigious universities across India. Our Teacher Education Institutes (TEI) ca pacity is extremely fragmented with over 11 lakh seats in 14,000 TEIs. Most of this capacity is of poor quality that has been created through non-transparent, poorly formulated TEI recognition procedures. Government should build and scale highquality institutes at top 10 central universities and strengthen SCERTs and DIETs.
We believe that every child in India deserves excellent education. We also believe that given the vastness and diversity of our country we can only succeed with thorough experimentation and analysis, rather than a mere adoption of predefined rules.
Our country needs bold reforms and focused implementation with clear targets for learning outcomes to achieve this goal.
Our emerging market peers China, Brazil and Poland, among others have made education reform a priority as they recognise it as the surest path to sustained economic development.
In the run-up to elections we circulated a letter signed by leading citizens Cyrus Mistry , Kumar Birla, Anand Mahindra, Gurcharan Das and 30 others that highlighted the need for prioritising education in the policy agenda and suggested reforms. The future of 240 million children is at stake, and as concerned citizens we urge your attention to these bold steps that can truly improve their lives.
Thank you.
Anu Aga is a Rajya Sabha MP and Chairperson, Thermax; Ashish Dhawan is Founder of Ashoka University; Amit Chandra is Board Member of Akanksha Foundation.
First, our education system currently suffers from an apparent `Licence Raj' that restricts entry and operation of private players. Even policies such as RTE neglect that private schools are a large part of the education ecosystem (already 40% of school students and 60% of college students are enrolled in private institutions). These norms have led to the shutdown of a large number of affordable private schools that serve lowincome students. The government must deregulate school education and treat government and private schools as equal partners in solving India's education crisis.
Second, it is important not only to invest more in education but to do so more strategically.
Central government should invest more resources in teacher education and development, principal training, ICT in education and assessments. It is also critical for the ministry of human resource development to rework its results framework document (RFD) to include student learning outcomes. Furthermore, a portion of the budget allocation to states should be contingent upon the adoption of progressive education policies and improvement of outcomes. There is an opportunity to create version 2.0 of the central education budget that shifts focus from inputs and outlays to outcomes and impact, while holding states accountable.
Third, improve quality standards through nationwide assessments. Assessments need to be at the core of any planning exercise for improving India's education system. The government should introduce statewide learning assessments that are undertaken at regular periods during a child's school journey , which can also contribute to remediation and improvement in teaching. Additionally , a school rating system should be instituted to set targets for school level improvements. The National Achievement Survey (NAS) should be revamped such that it becomes a barometer for student learning and the de facto benchmark for state performance.
Modi's government in Gujarat has already taken a lead in this regard with the Gunotsav programme, an accountability framework for quality of primary education that includes learning outcomes of children as well as co-scholastic activities, optimal use of financial resources and community participation. This model can be replicated in other states.
Fourth, equip school principals to become efficient school leaders. Great leaders make great institutions, in every sphere. In schools principals are the highest point of leverage, yet their role is often restricted to administrative functions. There is a need to reimagine the role of the principal as an instruc tional leader, rather than an administrator. Moreover, we need to institute stricter guidelines for recruitment of school leaders that prioritise merit over seniority . Gujarat has again taken the lead by establishing the headmaster eligibility test for selection of its principals. The government should set up centres for school leadership in every state and mandate induction as well as ongoing training for all principals.
Fifth, improve teacher quality for better learning outcomes. It is unfortunate that teaching today does not attract the best talent. We need public awareness campaigns in India that are able to effectively project teaching as a rewarding and meaningful profession. Centres of excellence need to be created for teacher education in prestigious universities across India. Our Teacher Education Institutes (TEI) ca pacity is extremely fragmented with over 11 lakh seats in 14,000 TEIs. Most of this capacity is of poor quality that has been created through non-transparent, poorly formulated TEI recognition procedures. Government should build and scale highquality institutes at top 10 central universities and strengthen SCERTs and DIETs.
We believe that every child in India deserves excellent education. We also believe that given the vastness and diversity of our country we can only succeed with thorough experimentation and analysis, rather than a mere adoption of predefined rules.
Our country needs bold reforms and focused implementation with clear targets for learning outcomes to achieve this goal.
Our emerging market peers China, Brazil and Poland, among others have made education reform a priority as they recognise it as the surest path to sustained economic development.
In the run-up to elections we circulated a letter signed by leading citizens Cyrus Mistry , Kumar Birla, Anand Mahindra, Gurcharan Das and 30 others that highlighted the need for prioritising education in the policy agenda and suggested reforms. The future of 240 million children is at stake, and as concerned citizens we urge your attention to these bold steps that can truly improve their lives.
Thank you.
Anu Aga is a Rajya Sabha MP and Chairperson, Thermax; Ashish Dhawan is Founder of Ashoka University; Amit Chandra is Board Member of Akanksha Foundation.
Fresh ideas, not more institutions
Need to revamp higher education institution .
The reform that has to take place will have to address the fundamental problem of institutionalised mediocrity, deeply embedded in these institutions.
It is not enough to talk about pursuing excellence; to establish and build world-class universities of excellence, the ecosystem of higher education has to change dramatically. These are some of the changes required.
Nurturing talent
To have a stronger commitment toward pursuing excellence.
Though a number of Universities in Asia in countries like china , singapore ,s korea have made to the list of top colleges but we havent.
On the contrary indian students and researchers do well abroad.
Thus it is inability of universities to nurture such talents.
Effecting transformation involves five things:
-substantial resources,
-a progressive regulatory environment in which higher education regulators begin to trust universities,
-a new governance model for creating opportunities and space for research and scholarship,
- an enabling environment within universities that will significantly incentivise research and publications,
- an attitudinal change among all stakeholders in the higher education sector.
The core emphasis has been to expand the diverse higher education sector with a view to increasing the gross enrolment ratio (GER). Mindless expansion has led to a situation where there is mediocrity.
CENTRAL VS STATE UNIVERSITIES
Central universities may be well funded, but suffer from a crisis of governance in which over 40 per cent of faculty positions lie vacant.
The problem is even more serious when it comes to the stateuniversities — they suffer from a lack of resources among other things.
Thus Archaic policies that have outlived their time should be dispensed with while recruiting faculty. Until the crisis of a lack of adequate infrastructure and faculty is addressed, there should be a short moratorium on establishing more central universities, IITs and IIMs.
Building world-class, research-oriented universities involves a serious commitment to knowledge creation in the sciences, arts, social sciences and humanities.
It is essential to identify a selected set of institutions to represent the best of public and private universities and significantly enhance their capacities with a view to advancing their research agendas.
This will not only help in understanding the key challenges that universities face in relation to nurturing research, but will also help us learn from recurring mistakes.
Indian universities are generally timid in seeking collaborations which are necessary for the development of new ideas and perspectives. There are a significant number of biases and prejudices that have led to scepticism in promoting any form of collaboration, even among our own universities. There is also lack of interdisciplinary teaching among different faculties and schools. The bureaucratic approach of university managements and regulators has led to the creation of too many hurdles in the pursuit of any meaningful collaboration.
Existing policies relating to research collaborations both within and outside India need to be re-examined and made more progressive and inclusive. They should be made progressive vis-à-vis ensuring greater autonomy and freedom to universities to determine who they want to collaborate with and what the terms of collaboration should be.
There is a need to remove the distinctions that exist in relation to public and private universities; instead, universities ought to be differentiated on the basis of their performance and contribution.
Amending rules
The biggest challenge is to create an enabling environment to promote innovation. Archaic rules and regulations that are constantly flouted have given rise to opportunities to dubious institutions to be engaged in corruption. No reform of higher education institutions is possible without a careful and calibrated effort to examine the current framework of the powers of the government and of regulatory bodies.
INDIA LEARNING - A Few Simple Lessons to Get the Education Agenda Right
Shantanu Prakash
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The prime minister's 10-point agenda indicates seriousness about education targets even as his government will be acting under the weight of not just a national emergency in education but also pent up hopes and aspirations of a whole generation of young people who are thirsting for access to quality education. It is imperative, therefore, that the new HRD minister acts with boldness, speed and vision. We need radically big leaps. So, what should the new government do?
Five key things, is the answer: Allow private capital in education: For decades we have limited the supply of schools due to self imposed constraints on volumes by keeping private investment out of education. Estimates suggest that if private capital is allowed to participate in education, it can unleash investment of over 10,000 crore over the next one year: equivalent of building 1,000 new schools. When you consider it has taken about 60 years to create 1,200 odd Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, the argument for private investment in education makes sense.Allowing bodies, whether forprofit or not-for-profit, to set up educational institutions, will overnight create an investment environment which will attract capital, not just from India but all over the world and it is not unthinkable to assume that$5-6 billion of investment could flow into India in the medium term. This kind of capital will change the face of Indian education and provide us the “big leap“ to make up for decades of underinvestment in education.
Introduce a reformist regulator: The education sector is beset by multiple, conflicting, parallel and in many cases, superfluous regulation. A licensing-based approach to education that only seeks to perpetuate mediocrity and limit education choices should be done away with. For starters, a regulator will put in guidelines to regulate quality and not have a fixed asset/inputbased approach to education quality. It will rather talk about teacher training, qualifications, results, accreditation, industry-academia relationship, continuing education for professors, curriculum, innovation and research. It would be a completely different vocabulary for education transformation Allow foreign education on shore: It sounds silly that we would be okay with Indian students spending over $4 billion in foreign universities rather than permitting joint ventures and collaborations and the opening of foreign institutions in India. To allay fears of an over-run, conditions can be put in place like compulsory local equity to the extent of either 50% or more for the first three years, not dissimilar to the regulations that are put in place for telecom or insurance. At the same time we should do away with restrictions on repatriation, recognition of foreign degrees and so on.
Take Indian education global: It is strange to know that an estimated 25% of professors in leading universities globally and a similar percentage of the student population is Indian and the “education transaction“ between teacher and student, both Indians, is being carried out abroad rather than here in the country . To correct this anomaly we must create a mindset for our institutions to become globally competitive and to start targeting first world students. We must give our existing universities a direct incentive or cash credit for attracting non-Indian students.
The more foreign students we get to India, the more credibility of Indian education would be established worldwide, professors will come back to India and Indian students will not need to travel abroad for quality education.
Lastly , there is an urgent need to create viable public-private-partnership initiatives. The government needs to encourage education rather than run educational institutions directly .
So it should better invest resources in PPP ventures and bring in credible private sector partners. A buoyant capital market and a robust FDI regime is the right ecosystem for us to attract serious capital to setting up and running educational institutions.
This straight-forward five point agenda will enable India's dream to be a 21st century powerhouse of human capital. The next 100 days will set the trend. India's next 100 years could be shaped by it.
The author is CMD, Educomp Solutions Ltd
Five key things, is the answer: Allow private capital in education: For decades we have limited the supply of schools due to self imposed constraints on volumes by keeping private investment out of education. Estimates suggest that if private capital is allowed to participate in education, it can unleash investment of over 10,000 crore over the next one year: equivalent of building 1,000 new schools. When you consider it has taken about 60 years to create 1,200 odd Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, the argument for private investment in education makes sense.Allowing bodies, whether forprofit or not-for-profit, to set up educational institutions, will overnight create an investment environment which will attract capital, not just from India but all over the world and it is not unthinkable to assume that$5-6 billion of investment could flow into India in the medium term. This kind of capital will change the face of Indian education and provide us the “big leap“ to make up for decades of underinvestment in education.
Introduce a reformist regulator: The education sector is beset by multiple, conflicting, parallel and in many cases, superfluous regulation. A licensing-based approach to education that only seeks to perpetuate mediocrity and limit education choices should be done away with. For starters, a regulator will put in guidelines to regulate quality and not have a fixed asset/inputbased approach to education quality. It will rather talk about teacher training, qualifications, results, accreditation, industry-academia relationship, continuing education for professors, curriculum, innovation and research. It would be a completely different vocabulary for education transformation Allow foreign education on shore: It sounds silly that we would be okay with Indian students spending over $4 billion in foreign universities rather than permitting joint ventures and collaborations and the opening of foreign institutions in India. To allay fears of an over-run, conditions can be put in place like compulsory local equity to the extent of either 50% or more for the first three years, not dissimilar to the regulations that are put in place for telecom or insurance. At the same time we should do away with restrictions on repatriation, recognition of foreign degrees and so on.
Take Indian education global: It is strange to know that an estimated 25% of professors in leading universities globally and a similar percentage of the student population is Indian and the “education transaction“ between teacher and student, both Indians, is being carried out abroad rather than here in the country . To correct this anomaly we must create a mindset for our institutions to become globally competitive and to start targeting first world students. We must give our existing universities a direct incentive or cash credit for attracting non-Indian students.
The more foreign students we get to India, the more credibility of Indian education would be established worldwide, professors will come back to India and Indian students will not need to travel abroad for quality education.
Lastly , there is an urgent need to create viable public-private-partnership initiatives. The government needs to encourage education rather than run educational institutions directly .
So it should better invest resources in PPP ventures and bring in credible private sector partners. A buoyant capital market and a robust FDI regime is the right ecosystem for us to attract serious capital to setting up and running educational institutions.
This straight-forward five point agenda will enable India's dream to be a 21st century powerhouse of human capital. The next 100 days will set the trend. India's next 100 years could be shaped by it.
The author is CMD, Educomp Solutions Ltd
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