INTRODUCTION:
One decade has been completed in the 21st Century. We need to still wait for one more decade for the fulfillment of our vision and mission of transforming India in to a ‘developed country from a developing country’ on our march towards our cherished goal of becoming an ‘economic super power’ in this millennium. On taking a review of events that have occurred up to 2010 we will be in a position to know what is still required to be done for enabling ourselves to work out a road map for the growth and prosperity of the nation in developing value added human resources in tune with both domestic and global markets. Based on the need to provide best of the opportunities to our youth we have undertaken and continuing to undertake several of the reforms in our education sector making the best use of the experience and expertise available in the flat world. This could be possible because of the openness of the entire world countries through their approach of ‘caring and sharing’ of knowledge for the betterment of the people of the universe. Taking advantage of the prevailing situation of ‘border less society/ies’ the progress made in Indian education sector is remarkable but is not enough. We need to do lot more for our youth in inculcating the spirit of ‘capability, competence and confidence’ to face the existing and emerging challenges. Some of the issues of relevance are discussed for paving a clear path in right direction for the betterment of our education system as a powerful tool empowering our human resources to play a dominant role in the development of the entire world.
EDUCATION AS INDUSTRY:
Once food, clothing and shelter (Roti, kapda aur makan) were considered as the basic needs of human beings. With the developments in the industrial and information age, another need has arisen i.e., education. It is a well realized fact that transmission and transformation of tradition and culture, running of politics and economy is made possible only through education. With number of educational options existing before the students at present, newer trends are seen to emerge in the field of education that has entirely changed the traditional system of education prevalent in India. Though, many traditional courses such as engineering, medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, law, management etc., are still in high demand, yet in keeping with the changing trends at the national and global economic scenario, new educational programs are emerging fast, thereby depicting the deviation from the older trends. Many career alternatives, which were hitherto not regarded as important or popular are becoming the well sought after career options for the students such as; T.V and media management, program anchoring, hotel management, news reporting, fashion designing, event management, content writing, hospital management, medical transcription and many more that have opened up new vistas for education thus making education as an industry, the most important one worldwide.
A HISTORIC MOMENT:
Realizing the potential, the Constitution was amended nine years back to make education as a fundamental right. On 1st April, 2010, the ‘Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act’ became a law. India has now joined a few countries like Chile and Bangladesh which ensure compulsory education. Dr, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India on this occasion stated; “I am what I am today because of education”. Education is now in the forefront of the national agenda. There is a law now to back education ensuring its rightful centre-stage in all policy decision-making based on which we can progress and develop.
SCHOOL EDUCATION:
Need for Change from Not for Profit Trusts to
For Profit Institutes / Societies:
In India, a school is a capital intensive business. For setting up a school for 1000 children on a 2 acre plot could cost anywhere between Rs. 10-20 crores. They need to be owned by a not-for-profit trust or society or government with philanthropy contributing to quality approach. Government has over 1 million schools and effectively runs the largest number of schools in the country. There are a total of 75,000 private schools in India.
Given the big demand for good quality school education, new schools in large quantity are to be established. The huge gap can be met only when the Government changes its thinking from ‘not for profit’ approach to an approach of allowing responsible and accountable ‘for-profit’
institutions in the education sector.
Private Investment in Education:
After Kapil Sibal took over as Minister HRD a lot of visibility has been generated for the education sector. New schemes and new ideas are doing the rounds. As a result a lot of money, private money included, is coming to education from the private sector giving much better access and far better infrastructure. The government has announced fairly attractive schemes making the investment in education growing manifolds. With the use of technology in a big way our schools could create right ambience for better ‘learning experience’.
Primary Education Sector:
The Right to Education Act is a welcome development of recent times, as it has the potential to ensure access to education. This should be with a concern for quality, which in Indian schools may take some time to improve. Great efforts will have to be put to improve our primary education system, which is plagued by so many problems. These range from single- teacher schools to institutions where girls cannot attend just because there are no toilet facilities. Broadly the problems are those of access and quality. Seen on a nationwide basis, out of every 100 students who enroll for class one, 80 or so drop out by the time they reach class nine or ten.
Lack of quality teachers is a major stumbling block and this will continue for some more time to come because teaching has not been a sought after profession for a long time. This cannot be changed overnight. Getting a set of good teachers for all the subjects and retaining them is a problem that has to be tackled by us on priority basis. This is possible through the provision of reasonable infrastructure with proper use of technology. It is true that technology cannot replace the teacher completely, but it can substitute a teacher’s work by up to 20 per cent or so. In India, the government and some private organisations have introduced education channels and e-learning schemes with an aim to accelerate the improvement of our education sector. But, technology has not really kept pace with the need requirement of creating a classroom-like experience for our students.
Need For Teachers:
With the Right to Education Act, demand for teachers in primary schools has increased dramatically. It is estimated that around 510,000 additional teachers are required within few years. Further to this, there are around 120,000 primary schools in the country with only one teacher. If we need to merely add one more teacher in each of these schools to improve the learning experience, there will be an additional demand for 120,000 teachers. Over the past so many years, the shortage of teachers is the main worry for the nation in the light of the fact that the teaching profession has not been in a position to attract the best of talent partly due to poor pay and also due to poor working conditions.
Due to the huge demand for teachers, it is possible that the compensation levels of teachers may go up, especially in private schools. Schools in cities are witnessing this phenomenon where the salaries for teachers are rising every year still are faced with attrition. Many school managements complain that the teacher training imparted to teachers is woefully inadequate and the schools need to re-train the qualified teachers. Hence, along with setting up large number of schools, government needs to push the agenda on setting up a large number of teacher training colleges lest we face a scenario of schools without teachers.
HIGHER EDUCATION – CONCERN FOR QUALITY:
Massification of education in higher education sector particularly in professional education is a phenomenon of the recent times. Review of reports appearing in several media indicate that there are several thousands of seats lying vacant in professional education covering; engineering, management, pharmacy etc., as a sequel to quantitative expansion with many institutions mushrooming all over the country. Most of these institutions have been set up by people who do not have any background of education. It suggests that our focus on creating quantitative capacity in higher education has taken priority over the quality. The latest rankings of quality studies in the world show that there are only two Indian universities in the top 200, while US has more than 50 and UK has more than 20. This position indicates the need to focus our attention on quality with full realization that rapid expansion of capacity without attention to improve the quality will not solve the current crisis; on the other hand it will make it worse.
The Role of Higher Education in Providing Right Skill Sets:
Education is not a homogenous industry. For the past 25 years we have traversed quite a bit of ground. Our mission now is to become a global career education enterprise with entrepreneurial traits. We are into animation, multimedia and gaming, hardware networking, travel, tourism, hospitality and airport management, an English language academy etc. With presence in more than 20 countries the aspirations of our student will remain the same i.e., to get a better quality/standard of living. We aim to give our students, right skill sets, career tools which are valid both internally and internationally.
Setting up Universities of Innovation.
There is a revolutionary provision for setting up Universities of Innovation in the Bill introduced recently with a lot of scope for private capital to come in. In fact only Indian private capital will come initially to fund university (ies) of innovation. The foreign players will have to wait to see how things progress then they may come in.
Partnership with Global Universities:
The latest figures are staggering – 220 million children start schooling in Grade 1 across India. Roughly 80 per cent drop out by the time they reach class 10 and finally, only around 14 million reach college — that is an embarrassing 6 per cent!
The MHRD desires to raise it to 30 percent. Recently, Union HRD Minister urged educational institutions in India and abroad to enter into collaborations in order to ensure that Indian students get access to quality education. He emphasised the need for India to grow along the lines of the 3 Ss — ‘science, solutions and sustainability’. According to him sustainability, which is critical for the development of the entire country can be achieved only through collaborations.
In India, there are a few Institutes which have already collaborated with foreign universities. However, given the sheer gap between the demand for good quality education and supply, there is a greater potential for partnerships across various streams. Such partnerships can bring the expertise of foreign universities — in terms of courseware, academic inputs, training to Indian teachers etc. Foreign universities will be keen to enter the Indian education market. However, they will definitely evaluate all options before they engage into a partnership.
Eventually, if such partnerships fructify, it can only benefit the Indian student and hopefully, the present number of 14 million will start creeping upwards!
INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE EDUCATION PROCESS:
Internationalization is conceived as one of the important strategies for building up quality and reputation in our institutions of higher learning. It may comprise of international collaborations for the faculty members and also for the students, joint research tasks or offshore campuses.
Craze of Indian Students going abroad for Higher Education: Increased enrolment of Indian students in foreign Universities in spite of the hostile treatment meted to by them at least in some of the foreign countries speaks of the craze of our students to foreign education. With the reforms we made in allowing foreign universities to set up their campuses in India or to have academic tie up programmes with Indian institutions, the question before us is:
‘Will Indian students stop going abroad to study?’
There is no simple answer to this question. As students besides wanting to get degree/(s) go to any institution or university to get a wholesome learning experience. If any foreign institution sets up a campus in India, it cannot totally replace the experience a student would get if he/she studies in the original campus abroad. By setting up campuses in India the foreign universities will give Indian students a choice. It is unlikely to completely stop the flow of Indian students going abroad. A couple of years ago, the notion of foreign universities being allowed in India were unthinkable. The recent reforms now made this possible giving Indian students a choice — a good choice, hopefully!
Entry of Foreign Universities/ Educational Institutions into India:
The Foreign Universities Bill is a good initiative from MHRD in this decade. The Government has put in filters in the bill preventing those kinds of institutions which we do not want them to be here. With the education becoming an industry in India, we are now fairly matured enough to welcome the entry of foreign universities / educational institutions that will benefit the nation by providing quality education to sizable number of student population with enormous appetite for learning with reasonably economic way. It may be too much to think that this step would result in a dramatic change in our education sector. The entry of few foreign institutes will not drastically change the education scene in a radical manner but will certainly help some students to get quality education. This apart, it will enable many of other institutions to emulate the right practices from these institutions. Thus, as a piece of legislation this Bill is a fairly a dramatic step that many, though desired, never thought that they would see something like this will happen in this country in their lifetime.
But, in terms of the impact, the role of foreign universities will be limited. This will not help in improving the situation of shortages in terms of the number of colleges and universities; it is too huge a gap to be filled by foreign institutions.
Fears about the Quality of Institutions that come to India:
There is a lurking apprehension and a fear in the minds of many that first quality institutions may not come to India, even though we welcome them through the enactment of the Bill. For this, we need not have to fear and should accept the second or third rung institutions to come, in the light of the fact, that many of our students are now going not only to top notch institutions but to other institutions as well. If the top two or three colleges don’t come, we need not have to bother. Let the second or third level institutions come and become successful then the top institutions will also come.
One should always note that the entry of foreign universities will not be a substitute to learning in our own country’s institutions. As in the case of schools, the university is not just about the campus but it is about a host of learning experiences. The atmosphere of prominent foreign institutions cannot be recreated here in a campus just like that and requires about 10 to 15 years to get its processes going.
Hence, we should encourage foreign universities to come and at the same time facilitate partnerships. It should never be one against the other.
to be continued next month...