INDIA'S EDUCATION SYSTEM is complex, brimming with problems and challenges. In tertiary education there are several higher education institutions supported by the Central government, some of whom provide high quality education. Moreover, a large number of universities are supported by governments of India’s 29 states and seven Union territories in addition to several privately funded colleges/universities. Most of the latter are under-funded, especially state government colleges and varsities.
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Restricted capacity, poor infrastructure and inadequate facilities of state government institutions have spurred the growth of private institutions of higher education driven by commercial objectives. But an uncomfortably large number of private engineering, medical, and business management colleges and deemed varsities are also suffering faculty shortages and lack adequate facilities.
Although the Central government has been increasing its annual outlay for education marginally over the past few years, the promise that the annual allocation for education (Centre plus states) would rise to 6 percent of GDP, of which at least 2 percent would be spent on higher education, has not been honoured. Inadequate investment is the main factor behind the indifferent quality of education, and low productivity in industry and agriculture. Moreover excessive bureaucratic control and political interference have adversely affected the performance of government-supported education institutions. Now with a new government at the Centre, it’s high time serious attention is paid to the problems of publicly-funded higher education institutions.
At one time, universities were the main drivers of scientific research in India. Today, they contribute a small percentage to the research output of the country. This is the main cause of not a single Indian university being included in the annual league tables of the world’s Top 200 universities published by the London-based rating agencies QS and Times Higher Education.
Therefore the country’s 700 universities have to reduce their exclusive focus on teaching and step up research activities not only by publishing more papers but also improving quality of research output substantially. This is necessary for Indian industry to become internationally competitive. The highly enabling environments created for academic research by the neighbouring countries in Asia should serve as examples to universities and the Union HRD ministry. It’s my hope India will be able to publish 5-10 percent (instead of 1 percent currently) of the top 1 percent of global research papers in the next ten years.
This optimism is fuelled by the successful R&D (research and development) initiatives of several postgraduate universities/institutes supported by science departments of the Union government. For instance, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research supported by the Department of Atomic Energy, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) supported by the Department of Science and Technology (which admit only Ph D students) produce excellent research papers. Ditto the laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The latter is the oldest and probably the finest institution of research in India with more than 1,300 students pursuing research-intensive doctoral studies. Unfortunately, the number of institutions offering high quality postgraduate education and research opportunities is small. This is the major reason behind highly talented young Indian scholars fleeing abroad and not returning, because it’s difficult to find fulfilling knowledge creation and innovative work positions in India.
Against this backdrop, it’s necessary for the hrd ministry and the academic community to work collaboratively to draw up urgent priorities for expanding and upgrading India’s institutions of higher education. The successful experiment of promoting five new Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, which provide excellent science education to undergraduates and research opportunities for postgraduate students, needs to be replicated countrywide. While India’s famous IITs are renowned for undergraduate engineering education, they too need to develop their R&D and innovation capabilities to progress to become MITs (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) of India. While there’s urgent need to promote more greenfield universities, established universities should concentrate on graduate education and research rather than affiliating huge numbers of colleges and wasting academic time and effort on administering examinations.
Over the next two-three decades, an additional 10-20 million youth will enter higher education. Therefore a national vision group or commission should be urgently constituted by the new government to prepare an action-oriented plan and devise policies and strategies to improve the quality of undergrad and postgraduate education, especially in the sciences and new technologies. This is a necessary pre-condition of India emerging as an industrial and economic heavyweight in the emerging global economy of the 21st century.
(Bharat Ratna Dr. CNR Rao is a National Research Professor and honorary president of JNCASR, Bangalore)