The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Working towards ensuring renaissance in education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 15, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Working towards ensuring renaissance in education

Anita Joshua

DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES: Public University campuses can do more with their land, the NKC says. — Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Ideally, higher education should get two per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of any country. India, for years on end, has been able to provide only 0.7 per cent of the GDP to this segment; the lion's share going to the incomplete task of universalising elementary education.

And, such is the gap between demand and availability of seats in higher education that even two per cent of GDP will not suffice for the kind of expansion that the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) has projected as the basic requirement for India. As per NKC, India should have 1,500 universities across the country to attain a gross enrolment ratio of at least 15 per cent by 2015. This would require an investment of a magnitude beyond the reach of the Government.

A more immediate scenario has been drawn up by the Oversight Committee set up to monitor the implementation of reservation for Other Backward Classes in central educational institutions.

In its report to the Government, the committee has said that Rs. 18,197 crore would be needed over the next three years just to increase student intake in central educational institutions to factor in OBC reservation without impacting on the general category. A back-of-the-envelope calculation pegs the intake increase at 54 per cent.

Complement

Both the Oversight Committee and NKC have taken note of the fact that governmental effort to bankroll this expansion would have to be complemented by other sources of funding. NKC, for its part, has prepared a detailed roadmap; beginning with an advocacy for better asset management.

Finding most public universities sitting on a "large reservoir of untapped resources in the form of land,'' the Commission has made out a case for allowing universities to draw up norms and parameters for universities to use their land as a source of finance.

It has called for rationalisation of fees; a path fraught with political pitfalls. As of today, fees constitute less than 10 per cent of the total expenditure in universities. And, fees have remained unchanged in most universities for decades. While conceding the genuine concerns about access, NKC has noted that low fees in public universities, without any means test, have meant unquantifiable benefits for unintended beneficiaries. Of the view that there is no option but to rationalise fees, NKC has suggested a norm whereby universities meet at least 20 per cent of the total expenditure through fees.

Fees

Also, fees should be adjusted every two years through price indexation. At the same time, there should be a provision of fee waiver/scholarships for needy students, and universities should not be penalised by the University Grants Commission for the resources raised from higher fees through matching deductions from their grants-in-aid.

Another source of funding that has not been tapped well by India is philanthropic contributions. In fact, the proportion of such contributions in total expenditure on higher education has declined from more than 12 per cent in the 1950s to less than three per cent in the 1990s. Finding universities tapping such sources being penalised through matching deductions in grants-in-aid, the Commission has suggested that such institutions be rewarded instead.

Besides suggesting changes in tax and trust laws to encourage philanthropic contributions for higher education, a case has been made out for facilitating alumni contributions, licensing fees or user charges for facilities in universities used by people from outside.

Private investment

While engineering, medicine and management education have drawn ample private investment in recent years — accounting for two-thirds to three-fourths of the seats — very little has come the way of universities where more than 70 per cent of the students are enrolled.

Advocating public-private partnerships, an option that has been suggested is the Government providing the land and the private sector the money to set up institutions.

Another source of revenue that is fast gaining currency among policy makers is the international student community; the argument being that foreign students be charged higher fees which, in turn, can be used to cross subsidise the needy students.

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