Expert Comment

Expanding higher education capacity

On April 5, Union human resources minister Arjun Singh proposed an additional 27 percent quota in Central government promoted institutions of higher education including IITs, IIMs and Central universities for OBCs (other backward castes) to uplift them educationally, economically and socially. If this proposal is accepted, the new quota will be in addition to the 22.5 percent reservation for SCs and STs (scheduled castes and scheduled tribes). It is the prospect of 49.5 percent of seats in institutions of higher education being reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs for whom the entrance exam cut-offs will be lowered, which has provoked nationwide protest.

Yet the root cause of the additional quota proposal is capacity shortage. The supply of seats in Central government sponsored and aided institutions is drastically less than the demand for them. Therefore the first response of government should be to increase institutional capacity. This is neither an expensive nor difficult proposition.

Currently most higher education institutions (HEIs) work for only 180-200 days per year. Moreover classes in HEIs start only after 9 a.m or even later in some institutions. Against this, in industrially developed countries classes start at 6 a.m and go on till 10 p.m. Therefore by increasing the number of working days to 300 and working two shifts, capa-city can be doubled right away without additional capital expenditure.

Secondly, it needs to be more generously acknow-ledged that during the past two decades private sector entrepreneurs have entered professional education in a big way, and have subs-tantially expanded capacity in higher education. As a consequence India now has 800 management institutes and 1,200 engineering colleges, most of them in the private sector. Therefore if rules, regulations and complicated procedures for the promotion of HEIs in general are removed, a large number of philanthropists, corporations and educationists will step forward to promote new colleges and institutes. Government must help by providing land on long lease basis with liberal credit conditions. If complex rules, procedures and processes relating to promotion of HEIs are streamlined, and paperwork reduced, a large number of trusts, educationists and citizens will step forward to give Indian education the supply side boost it needs.

Moreover promotional liberalisation also needs to be supplemented by operational liberalisation, and promoters of HEIs need to be given adequate autonomy to manage their institutions as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court in the TMA Pai Foundation and Inamdar cases. These apex court guidelines permit government to retain controls necessary for ensuring education quality and transparency.

The ground reality is that there is an unequal situation in higher education. Some HEIs (IITs, IIMs, JNU etc) are of global standard while most offer sub-standard infrastructure and academic instruction. Therefore attempts to introduce a uniform policy for all HEIs in such an unequal situation will exacerbate rather than mitigate institutional inequality.

Liberalisation of the economy since 1991 has greatly benefitted India’s rising middle class which has the means to pay the high fees demanded by privately promoted HEIs. Therefore the latter can be set free to stand on their own, meeting the demands of average and even mediocre students from the new affluent classes who can pay their way. To enable government institutions to meet the education needs of SCs, STs and OBCs, private institutions could contribute a cess to help government HEIs to improve their infrastructure and partially meet operational expenses.

Moreover the organisational productivity of HEIs can be sharply improved not only by utilising physical infrastructure round the clock, but also by doubling the existing teaching load as most faculty in HEIs is heavily under-employed. About 20 percent of faculty engaged in research and other assignments could be exempted from additional teaching load. There is also scope for greater utilisation of managers working in industry to serve as faculty. They could be given teaching assistants to help convert their practical experience into curriculum programmes.

All these suggestions which would vastly expand the capacity of HEIs require restructuring, reorganisation and management innovation. During the past 50 years haphazard reforms in HEIs have been half-heartedly implemented. Education commissions have largely restricted themselves to recommendations based on lofty idealism and unreachable goals. They have not examined practical ways and means to organise and manage existing institutions more efficiently and effectively.

Now that a storm has broken over the issue of additional reservation for OBCs, it’s a good time for governments at the Centre and in the states to rapidly expand capacity and annual intakes into HEIs and simultaneously make provision for the induction of a greater number of socially and educationally backward students into India’s institutions of higher education.