HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA

(For Paper 2 GS: On Education)

CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Human Resources Hourglass Structure
Archaic Examination System
Rigid Curriculum and lack of electives
Universities exit from undergraduate education
Poor quality teaching, inbreeding, and lack of appraisal
Islands of Excellence, Oceans of Mediocrity
Withdrawal of state and defacto privatization
Implications of Overseas Purchase of Education
Absence of Regulatory Framework
Lack of Leadership
CHALLENGES
OPPORTUNITIES
CRITICAL REFORMS
NCHER Bill
Foreign Institutions Bill
The Accreditation Bill
The Malpractices Bill

Higher, post-secondary, tertiary or third level education is the stage of

learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and
institutes of technology. Higher education also includes certain collegelevel institutions, such as vocational schools, trade schools, and career
colleges, that award academic degrees or professional certifications
CRISIS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

1 Human Resources Hourglass Structure

The structure of our human resources is in the form of an hourglass.

There are a huge number of mid and top level professionals such as
doctors, engineers and lawyers of an indifferent quality that the society
cannot accommodate or put to productive use. Yet there arent enough
number of professionally trained semi-skilled people such as electricians,
plumbers and mechanics to fulfil the societys requirements. At the
bottom are the millions of unskilled, illiterate workers
The past two decades witnessed a phenomenal growth in the number of
so-called professional institutions producing graduates who dont have
skills that can be gainfully employed for producing the kind of goods and
services that India needs. educated unemployment is on the rise, as these
graduates are not equipped to become wealth creators. .
2 Archaic Examination System

The examination system for higher education is archaic and disgraceful.

The stress is often on testing the students memory and rote learning This
one size fits for all kind of an examination system does not leave any
room for either continuous appraisal during the term of the course, or for
testing the students creativity, application of knowledge and problem
solving skills.In the current higher education setup, excepting for elite
institutions such as IITs and IIMs, the teacher doesnt have any role in
evaluating the students performance.
3 Rigid Curriculum and lack of electives

The higher education curriculum is extremely rigid, centrally defined and

doesnt leave any room for individual choice or experimentation. This
resulted in creating a rigid academic atmosphere, with artificial divisions
of various disciplines, and pre-determined combinations of courses on
offer excepting the IITs and similar elite institutions Even within a course,
what has to be taught and what textbooks to study are prescribed,
leaving no room for the teacher to be creative in designing the course
4 Universities exit from undergraduateeducation

One of the worst anomalies that crept into Indian higher education system
is that universities are completely removed from undergraduate
education.

5 Poor quality teaching, inbreeding, and lack of appraisal

6 Islands of Excellence, Oceans of Mediocrity

While it is impressive that we succeeded in creating world-class

institutions such as the IITs and IIMs, there is a lot of collateral damage
attached to this success. The disproportionate allocation of meagre
resources to these islands of excellence resulted in the neglect of other
public institutions which turned them into oceans of mediocrity.
A vicious cycle has now set in. Poor quality higher education is producing
many graduates who often lack conceptual clarity and the capacity to
apply knowledge for finding creative solutions. As a result, both wealth
creation in society and school education suffered. As such graduates
become school teachers, youngsters are graduating from schools without
the basic knowledge and understanding of subjects which are necessary
to benefit from college education. The few good teachers are in great
demand in coaching institutions preparing students for entrance tests for
professional courses including IITs.
7 Withdrawal of state and defacto privatization

Without any serious debate or preparation, the state opened the gates for
private provision of higher education. private for-profit higher education
institutions were allowed as a matter of routine
Very little investment went into pure sciences, education or humanities as
they are perceived to be of non-professional character and are not in
much demand.
With increasing fees and donations in the pvt colleges keeps the poor and
middle class away. In the absence of demand from vocal middle classes
and the consequent lack of political pressure, the states abdication of
education of education sector is accelerated, resulting in a vacuum that is
filled by a large private for-profit sector.
8 Implications of Overseas Purchase of Education

More and more Indians, especially from the middle classes are
increasingly resorting to sending their children abroad even for
undergraduate education. Even more disastrous than the financial
implication of this resource drain is the fact that the withdrawal of the
vocal middle classes and the accompanying political pressure is a certain
death knell for the public higher education system in India.

9 Absence of Regulatory Framework

The state controls where and what kind of private institution will be
established. This is mostly done through political patronage and rent
seeking behaviour by the quasi-regulatory agencies such as AICTE (All
India Council for Technical Education) and MCI (Medical Council of India).
This resulted in an utterly chaotic scenario, and the higher education
system is suspended between over-regulation by the state on one hand
and discretionary privatization on the other hand.
There is no independent mechanism for either evaluating the quality of
education or the quality of output from both public and private
educational institutions.

10 Lack of Leadership

Most public universities and institutes of higher learning are reduced to

personal fiefdoms of leading politicians. Once these individuals are
appointed, they have to satisfy their patrons by obliging their requests in
appointments, promotions etc.This led to a natural decline of these
institutions of higher learning.

CHALLENGES

Equitable and accessible higher education system of high quality

Foster competition in providing education services and offer choice to

the students

Promote the importance of a true liberal education

Enhance public financial provision for higher education

Establish an independent regulatory framework to ensure standards

and quality

OPPORTUNITIES

Young demographic profile, (% of 18-24 age group)

Hard working, ambitious, motivated youngsters

Huge demand for quality education

Culture and society that values education and treasures scholarship

Parents willing to spend significant resources

Graduates no longer seek a cushy government job and are willing to

compete in the market

Impressive infrastructure that can be redeployed

Non-monetary

inputs that can make a difference

CRITICAL REFORMS

Given the nature of crisis afflicting higher education in India, a mix of

nonmonetary and monetary inputs along with critical structural reforms is
the need of the hour. There are many best practices that are in vogue in
most western universities as well as the elite institutes in India, that are
worthy of replicating. Some of the key reform proposals that are modeled
after these widely accepted best practices are discussed in this section
1. Non-monetary Inputs
Flexible Curriculum and Electives-Freedom of choice, opportunity to win
academic distinction and discipline are all fostered at one stroke. This also
means that teachers whose courses were not valued became irrelevant,
and in effect students evaluate teachers
Encourage Liberal Education and Humanities-Any society needs a mix of
specialists and generalists to fulfill its unique requirements. While the
need for science and technology, and vocational and other specialized
forms of skill-based education is well-recognized and appreciated,
especially in a developing economy, the importance of broad, liberal
education is much less appreciated.
By definition, a liberal education is not directly tied to the study of a
particular discipline or vocation, but is designed to equip an individual
with the cognitive capacity to acquire knowledge in any field of her
choice.
A true liberal education will go a long way in producing the kind of leaders
and enlightened citizens who will take up a career in business,
organizational management, government, politics and academia that are

badly needed by the developing world. It is a testimony to the maturity of

a highly industrialized and developed nation such as the US, that the bulk
of its university graduates major in liberal arts and humanities
Creative Examination System, Continuous Evaluation

Test the depth of students knowledge, not breadth

Test analytical skills, application of knowledge and problem solving

capacity

Test should challenge the students ability to be creative and innovative

Stress on Evaluation should be done by the faculty who teaches the

course
There are many models of creative evaluation and testing that are
widely applied across the world that are worth emulating
Faculty Recruitment and Appraisal

Continuous appraisal and rating by students

undergraduate teaching by all faculty

Effort to recruit innovative thinkers and promote of new ideas

Encourage rigorous intellectual discourse

Constant new blood

Quality of education

The Eleventh Plan approved by the National Development Council

(NDC) provides a three point agenda in regard to accreditation, namely;
introduction of a mandatory accreditation system for all higher
educational institutions; creation of multiple rating agencies with a body
to rate these rating agencies; department-wise ratings in addition to
institutional rating.

Presently, accreditation is not mandatory and there is no law to govern

the process of accreditation. There are two Central bodies involved in
accreditation of institutions; the National Accreditation Assessment
Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation Board (NBA),
which is not possible if made mandatory.

Consequently, an institutional structure to ensure mandatory

accreditation needs a legal basis for it to have the force of law. It is
expected that with the passage of the legislation to provide for
accreditation of higher educational institutions and to create a
regulatory authority for the purpose many of these issues will be
resolved at least for some time to come.

 Problem Solving Research

Most Indian universities are particularly deficient in meaningful
research of any kind. As a result of this absence of academic rigor,
poor communications, and lack of relevance, academia have become
increasingly marginalized in shaping public discourse and solving real
problems in the societal, scientific and technological domains.
Innovative funding mechanisms, and other incentives to promote high
quality, problem-solving research in both technology related fields and
humanities need to be evolved. Emphasis on reasoning and analysis
and good writing skills at school level are obviously vital to make
productive research possible at university level
2. Monetary Inputs
Enhanced Public Expenditure
Financing Higher Education -The bulk of public expenditure on higher
education (in some instances 95 %) in India is in the form of revenue
expenditure and is barely enough to meet the faculty wage bill. There is
little scope left for any capital expenditure
We need to evolve sensible and viable financing mechanisms to meet the
demand for quality education, through higher investments public or
private, and to guarantee uniformly high quality education which fosters
innovation, creativity and wealth-creation. Therefore, while access should
be based on talent and motivation, costs should be recovered to make
quality education sustainable
The notion of free, mediocre quality education has hurt all sections of
society. Those who can afford are now fleeing the system, those who go to
state institutions are under-performing for no fault of theirs; and the poor
in society are subsidizing the not-so-poor for higher education. This
model is clearly unsustainable and wrecked our higher education system.
Regulatory Framework The need of the hour is to create a regulatory
framework that will encourage investment from a diverse range of
sources in higher education infrastructure and at the same time ensure
that every student will have equal access to these institutes of higher
education
The greatest hurdle that we have to overcome to create a robust
regulatory framework, is to change the minds of our decision makers
With the rapid growth of privately funded institutions the nature of their
governance system has become an area of major concern. The issue of
internal governance of the institution in terms of the processes connected
with admissions, registration, examinations, evaluations, scheduling and a
host of other functions are also matters that need closer attention in
ensuring quality.
3. Structural Reforms

 Differentiation of Higher Education Institutions

The structure of current system of higher education presumes that
everyone in the higher education system need a 3 or 4 yr college degree.
There is no room for the majority of youngsters, who might be on the
lookout for acquiring a skill that is readily marketable and which will get
them gainful employment. This structure doesnt leave much room for
flexibility, choice or experimentation of any kind
The Indian vocational education system is based on polytechnic colleges
providing diploma education in engineering, and industrial training
institutes providing skilled workers to industry. Both suffer from a fatal
flaw, as they are delinked from the mainstream education, and a student
cannot change her mind mid-course, nor can the credits be automatically
transferred to pursue undergraduate education in a university
The need of the hour is bring about a qualitative differentiation in the
structure of higher education, with the following objectives

Offer flexibility and choice for students

Offer strong vocational and skill based courses (diploma) of

shorter duration

Facilitate vertical mobility, i.e. people who with a 2-yr diploma

can use that credit to earn a 3 or 4 yr college degree at a time
of their choice.

Couple the vocational courses with internships in partnership

with industry
There are two models that are worth studying and emulating.
One is the much-acclaimed German model of vocational
education. The other is the equally impressive American model
of Community colleges.

4. Politics, Governance and Education

State can, and should, also be a positive institution to create basic
infrastructure, develop natural resources, and most of all to provide
quality school education and effective primary health care. Much of the
debate on education is centered round rewriting history or detoxification
of textbooks. The great debates are about the location of a temple or a
mosque, or past insults and private injuries, or perpetuation of barbaric
practices andshunning of modern, humanistic vision. Obscurantism is
zealously guarded, and the clear stream of reason has lost its way into
the dreary desert sand of dead habit.Perverse status-quoism and the
game of blame-throwing on our campuses have cost the nation dearly
In case of centrally funded government institutions such as IITs, IIMs,
Central Universities, IISERs, NITs etc., it is reasonably certain that the
interference and control of the government is minimal.
Usuallythe

governing boards and the heads of these institutions have the freedom to
evolve their academic policies and strategies except in areas where it
concerns the fundamental national policies (for example reservations; pay
commission norms etc.). The governing boards of these institutions
include just one or two officials of the Central Government. At the same
time there are also several central institutions with high proportion of
government official in their governing bodies where the interference
effect is high and troublesome. This is particularly worrisome in the case
of state-funded institutions.

Ever since the nation recognized the value of higher education for promoting
economic growth and social development, the pressure for reforms has been
escalating. These are formally embodied in two eminent reports brought out in
recent years, one by the National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam
Pitroda and the other by the Committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of
Higher Education headed by Yashpal.

NCHER Bill
An important measure awaiting political clearance of the Cabinet for
introduction in the Parliament is the Bill for the Creation of the National
Commission on Higher Education and Research (NCHER) (conforming to the
recommendations of the Yashpal Committee Report on Renovation and
Rejuvenationof Higher Education In India).
This Bill addresses certain fundamental concerns in the reports of National
Knowledge Commission and Yashpal Committee. These two reports draw
critical attention to the fundamental academic weaknesses such as
compartmentalization and fragmentation of knowledge systems,
absence of innovation in learning methods,
disconnect with the society and
too much emphasis on multiplicity of harmful entrance and qualifying
tests.
They reflect concerns on the growing trend in loss of university
autonomy damaging the prospect of healthy growth of spirits of
enquiry, creativity, and innovation
1. The NCHER is not a regulating or controlling or licensing or inspecting
body. Its primary task is to evolve norms and standards for various
aspects of higher education including assessment and accreditation, while

abolishing several of the regulating bodies dealing with the academic

norms for higher education.
2.

It restores to the universities the autonomy and responsibility to

implement these norms and standards.

3. It mandates the NCHER to consult with all States, Union Territories and
other statutory regulating bodies in evolving new policies, procedures,
norms and standards.
4. Identification of academic administrators of national standing eligible and
qualified to be appointed as Vice Chancellors of universities or heads of
central educational institutions. Considering the high degree of
dissatisfaction in selecting the heads of institutions, this function assumes
special importance.
5. A major task assigned to the Commission is to prepare once in every five
years a report onthe state of higher education and research in the various
states and submit to the Governor. Similarly, the Commission would
present to the President of India, a report on the vision of the higher
education and research in the forthcoming decade.
6. The status of Member of the NCHER is proposed to be such as to be free
of control by any one Ministry and made responsible only to parliament.
7. An important feature of the NCHER Bill is a provision to review by a
committee on eminent persons the performance of the Commission itself
about the extent of fulfillment of its goals and objectives and recommend
suitable actions. This is somewhat exceptional in the sense that the
institutions or organizations created by acts and statues seldom get
reviewed and this is one of the major reasons for their deterioration.
Hopefully, the various consultative processes that are envisaged between
now and its enactment will further enhance the distinctive role assigned
to the commission for renovation and rejuvenation of higher education in
India.
Foreign Institutions Bill

The Foreign Institutions Bill appear to have created most controversies.

Unfortunately the criticisms about the Foreign Institutions Bill are based on
uninformed misapprehensions. Most of the critics tend to ignore the present
ground reality of more than two hundred foreign programmes offered in India in
various modes. Undoubtedly majority of these are of substandard quality and
value. The regrettable fact is no agency in India has an account of the number
of foreign programmes, their mode of operation, nature of partnership, quality
of instruction, fee structure, protection of students interest and so on. Many of

them indulge in glossy and misleading advertisements enticing gullible

students with false promises. Available information on them is based on
tertiary sources of reports compiled by voluntary organizations.
1. The requirement that these institutions must have at least twenty years of
track record in offering recognized and accredited degree programmes in
their home country will weed out fly-by-night operators.
2. They have to comply with all the relevant laws of the land.
3. They should deposit a sum of Rs.50 Crores to meet any liability to the
students, faculty and others in case they quit or their registration is
withdrawn.
On the whole, the need for the Bill is never more acute and should help
to prevent the growing chaos in foreign programmes in India.

The Accreditation Bill

1. The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational

Institutions Bill, 2009, provides for mandatory accreditation of all higher
educational institutions through Accreditation Agencies registered under
the legislation. The proposal applies to all higher educational institutions
including, universities, institutions deemed to be universities, colleges,
institutes, institutions of national importance established by an Act of
Parliament, and their constituents, imparting higher education beyond 12
years of schooling leading to the award of a degree or a diploma, and
whether through the conventional or distance education systems.
2. The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational
Institutions is empowered to register agencies that would undertake
accreditation of institutions in accordance with regulations governing
academic quality i.e. the quality of outcomes associated with teaching,
learning and research besides quality in admissions, physical
infrastructure, human resource infrastructure, research and research
infrastructure, course curricula, assessment procedures, placement and
governance structures.
3. Existinghigher educational institutions and programmes therein would be
allowed a period of three years to obtain accreditation, if not already
obtained.
4. The Authority would monitor and audit the functioning of the Accreditation
Agencies. Besides the Authority would also register and regulate the
working of Accreditation Agencies

5. It also would require higher educational institutions to routinely provide

reliable information to the public on their performance, student
achievement, faculty availability and qualifications and research
publications and so on.
6. There are sufficient provisions in this Bill to ensure accreditation is
transparent and reliable with no scope for malpractices. The accreditation
rating in future will determine the fate of institutions or programmes as to
whether they should be allowed to continue at all, after reasonable
opportunities for correcting.
Any information about undesirable or
deliberate malpractices notonly in academic matters but also in
administration and governance process will contribute to adverse rating.

The Malpractices Bill

It lists all those (mal) practices that will attract the penalty of hefty fines and
jail terms.
The Bill requires prior announcement and publication of
institutional facilities, faculty, procedures for admissions and examination,
fee structure and so on. Any willful deviation will attract the penalty. For
instance collection of any kind of fees without giving any official receipt will
be treated as a major malpractice. Manipulated entrance tests, collection of
unaccounted fees, false information about faculty strength, qualification,
infrastructure etc., are some of other malpractices covered in this bill.
Name: Arjun Bopanna