Technology: an higher education enabler
As advanced countries move towards mass higher education with more than 50 percent of the relevant age group (18-23) entering higher education, India compares very unfavourably with only 6 percent in the same age group entering the portals of tertiary education. Indeed, if India is to meet its aspirations to become a developed nation by 2020, it needs to at least quadruple enrollment in tertiary institutions. However, if the percentage increase is even of a single point, the existing network of universities and colleges will be unable to cope with the influx, let alone accommodate affirmative action quotas for socially and educationally marginalised sections of society.Clearly, government by itself will not be able to meet this gap and private-public partnerships (PPPs) on a selective basis, and with adequate safeguards to ensure access, quality and equity are necessary. This is even more imperative when one considers that financing of higher education by the government has been marginal — stagnant at less than 0.5 percent of GDP with expenditure per student declining rapidly over the years.
Meanwhile predatory foreign education providers have long been eyeing this capacity shortage as an opportunity to rake in megabucks as is evident from the now obvious ‘cocacolonization’ taking place across all segments in Indian education. Franchising of branded kindergartens and pre-schools, international school certificate exam-inations, twinning with sometimes unheard of colleges and universities which offer certificate and diploma courses, are all indicative of the attraction of ‘foreign’ education to which parents and students are perforce drawn because of shortages in domestic education capacity. To make up for lost time, inadequate financing and access, and to rapidly create capacity in higher education, traditional strategies will require to be complemented with technology innovations as a crucial intervention in the process of energising and renewing higher education in India.
Quotas, reservations and all the controversy they have raised, will become irrelevant when supply of additional, alternative employment and entrepreneurship-oriented courses outstrip demand. Towards this end, e-education holds great promise. While distance education in India, started initially as correspondence and supplementary education, has expanded rapidly to encompass 12 open universities and 106 dual mode distance education institutes/centres catering to 2.8 million students, a recent report that highlights its haphazard growth and unsatisfactory quality provides an opportunity for mid-course correction.
Across the world, budgetary cutbacks in the face of enormous learner demand have forced institutions to examine emerging technologies and explore innovative projects and partnerships, including free open source software solutions to help create engaging content and pedagogical innovations for synchronous and asynchronous learning that are rich in collaboration, interaction and motivation. Despite frustrations, new technologies for learning continue to emerge. While colleges and universities globally tend to use asynchronous or delayed technologies with an instructor as the basis of e-learning, and thereby include online discussion forums, electronic books, online exams and grading, online mentoring, web-linked shared tools, student profiling and course material, synchronous presentation programmes which include applications sharing, web browsing, audio and video streaming, chat rooms, surveying and polling, are also gaining ground as emerging and enhanced pedagogies.
Moreover digital libraries with links to text, video, images, animation etc have long since expanded classroom content beyond standard textbooks and resource materials, opening up opportunities for student-led exploratory learning. Instructor portals wherein professors and support staff can find and share information that might help them teach better or connect their class with other classes around the globe have revolutionised the concept of teaching and in doing so, that of learning as well. These are no longer radical innovations in Indian academia and if they are not ubiquitous, it is probably because the education sector in India has yet to accept the need to manage technology professionally so that relevant and quality life-long education is made accessible and available to all citizens.
Fortunately, a growing number of decision makers in India are becoming aware of the benefits of managing complicated large investment projects professionally through the PPP model based on the principle of starting small, thinking big and scaling fast. If synergised with new technology initiatives, an unparalleled opportunity to educate millions of students across all segments can unfold, reaching education to the unreached and making the impossible in Indian education happen.
Managing ICT professionally with help of the private sector players in education, will make the difference between rhetoric and the attainment of targeted outcomes.
(Guilherme Vaz is the Mumbai-based director of IL&FS Education & Technology Services Ltd)