Roadmap for institutional upgradation
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| R.S. Ganapathy |
One of the highlights of the Union Budget 2005 speech of finance minister P. Chidambaram delivered to Parliament on February 28, was the unprecedented grant of Rs.100 crore to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, to transform it into a world-class institution on a par with Harvard and/or Oxford. While widely welcomed, this grant raises significant policy issues in higher education which is likely to witness strong global competition in the context of the impending WTO regime on services (which removes entry restrictions hitherto applicable to foreign education institutions). By 2008, at least a dozen major foreign universities will set up shop in India, attracting high-quality faculty, students, research funding and opportunities for training/ consulting services. Indian higher education institutions are thus confronted with a momentous challenge and opportunity. What should be the response? It is against this backdrop that we need to assess the fallout of the finance minister’s Rs.100 crore grant to IISc.
Strengthening higher education institutions in terms of infrastructure, quality of faculty and students is a relatively new idea in India. Since education has always been regarded as a public service, competition and competitiveness are ugly words in the common rooms of the nation’s 15,600 colleges and 311 universities. However, those who have visited exhibitions and education fairs of Australian, British and US colleges and universities and witnessed the huge crowds clamouring for admission into foreign universities, know that competition is a fact of life in higher education abroad.
The Central and state governments, which fund India’s colleges and universities are oblivious to the impending threat from abroad and continue to resist change. Interfering with admissions, faculty selection, location of facilities comes naturally to educrats. Merit, open discourse and disclosure of information are discussed in journal articles but ignored in reality.
Nor has the entry of private institutions into higher education improved the situation. Their major contribution has been opportunism, profiteering and resurgence of the zamindari system (abolished formally by a constitutional amendment in the early 1950s) in a new manifestation although they have contributed to the expansion of capacity in higher education. In select cases, they have pioneered major innovations as well.
Against this backdrop what can we do to make India’s higher education institutions world-class and globally competitive? There are several options which can serve as the framework of a reform agenda.
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The government (UGC/ AICTE/ MCI/ BCI etc) should encourage internal reform by providing assistance and linking reform to government support.•
Access to funding (except for core/maintenance support) should become increasingly competitive, and awarded on the basis of achievement in major national programmes of government agencies (e.g the science and technology department) or much like the National Science Foundation grant system in the US. •
All institutions receiving state funding should submit themselves to periodic performance review, which should supplement peer review prevalent currently in educational institutions. User involvement (industry, agriculture) in this process is vital. Regrettably, no education institution in India is subject to performance audit and users have no say in funding decisions, which are largely bureaucratic and incremental. •
A knowledge management system which would enable evaluation of organisational excellence in institutions of higher education is conspicuously absent. Instead the quantum of government grants is dependent upon each vice-chancellor’s influence in the corridors of power. Typically, while allocating Rs.100 crore to IISc in budget 2005-06 the finance minister has not disclosed the process or information which prompted this official largesse. The truth is that IISc didn’t compete for the funds nor did it put forward any specific proposal for funding. If government wants to upgrade institutions of higher education to world-class status, it must make such support systemic, competitive and transparent. Arbitrary support is undesirable and possibly harmful. •
Finally, the finance minister has linked the IISc grant to the creation of a Knowledge Commission, in a vague manner. It is clear that in the post-WTO world economy, knowledge will be a key factor of competitive advantage. Strengthening the higher education system by providing more resources for science and technology (linking education, research, training and application) is ideal. However, historically (unlike the US and UK which follow a different practice) the government has weakened the university system in India by creating specialist agencies like DST, CSIR, Atomic Energy, Space etc, for R&D (research and development). This policy deprives universities of sponsored research funding and R&D facilities. Integrating universities with these special agencies now, will require a major reform effort. Together with the HRD ministry, the finance minister should initiate a policy development exercise on these vital questions confronting higher education and creation of the proposed ‘knowledge economy’. It’s up to stakeholders of the higher education system to debate and generate policy options for government. As an immediate step, the Union government should constitute an independent high-powered committee to develop education and science and technology policy options (including funding, regulation, governance, etc) for debate. This is important because education needs to become the driver of our economic and social development.
(Dr. R.S. Ganapathy is a former professor of public policy and management at IIM-Ahmedabad)