Introduction
The time has come to
spread our wings from “Make in India” to “Educate in India.” Lakhs of Students go abroad to study every
year, many of whose parents sell assets or incur debt to manage the higher cost
of living in the developed countries.
Some are forced to go abroad because they can’t find admission in a
university or college of quality suitable for their level of intelligence &
motivation. Outdated ideology prevents us from reforming the system to provide
better education at a fraction of the cost incurred abroad. The Jungle of Laws,
Rules, regulations, bureaucratic controls, procedures and process puts a pall
of gloom over every economic activity, be it manufacturing, agriculture or
services, keeping many from sprouting, blooming and spreading. The focus must therefore expand from “Ease of
Doing Business” in India to “Ease of Educating” in India.
Though the education
sector has been growing fairly rapidly, it is still inadequate to the needs and
demands of society and its average quality has been deteriorating. With reforms
the rate of growth of the sector could be doubled and its quality improved
manifold without an excessive strain on limited government revenues. The education sector in India can be
transformed within half a decade given the right mix of policy, regulation and
reorientation of government expenditure.
This in turn can have a profound impact on the quality of output in all
sectors of the economy and the competitiveness of Indian industry, services and
agriculture. What we need is
constitutionally and legally sanctioned competition in tertiary and secondary
education, replacement of bureaucratic controls by professional regulations
along with private-public partnership to ensure universal primary education
within 3-5 years.
Policy & Regulatory Framework
The key to success is removal of current bureaucratic controls and
interference with aggressively promoted competition by professionally empowered
regulators (not controllers). A policy
framework for the competitive supply of education by non-government
organization will have the following elements:
a)
Rating Agencies: University Grants Commission /All India
Council for Technical Education /
National Accreditation Council / Medical Council of India/ Professional
Councils, would Register / License
rating agencies in their area of authority / expertise. Alternatively a
completely new organization could be set up for the purpose of accrediting
& monitoring rating agencies. Some of these rating agencies will specialize
in specific subjects, but others could cover multiple topics or broad
areas. These rating agencies would
devise a system for rating the quality of educational institutions and offer
their services to all education service providers (private & public).
b)
Private
Entry: Free entry of
registered societies (non-profit) and publicly listed (education) Companies in
all fields of education, subject to the following pre-specified conditions:
i) Quality Rating: Compulsory rating by
accredited agency (prior to accepting any fees from students). Ratings must be renewed every year at least
for the first 3-5 years. Periodicity of
compulsory rating can be reduced thereafter.
ii) Transparent Fees & Accounts:
Fees must be published and known in advance. Accounts must be audited by CA and
results made public if revenues/fees received exceed Rs. 10 lakhs. Un-audited
institutions must publish their basic/ minimum accounts (revenues, expenditure,
profits, capital investment, no of students, average fee per student) in
prescribed format.
c)
Subsidy
Accounting: Any education
society that gets below market-price land or other assistance must give
means-cum merit scholarships to needy students equal in value to the effective
subsidy.
d)
Government
Grants/Scholarship: An
impartial system for determination of what would be a fair and affordable
contribution of parents to children’s education based on family income/
wealth. This system would also calculate
eligibility for education loans and grants.
All those wanting scholarship grants would have to provide the required
information so that their requirements of scholarship grants and loans can be
evaluated.
Such and integrated system can be modeled on
the government run online system that exists in the US, but modified to suit
Indian circumstances. The system would ensure that the poor and lower middle
class children get the grants and the middle class the loans that they need to
educate children to the level of their capabilities and interest.
e)
Removal/minimization
of controls and restrictions: For instance specification of particular
infrastructure and/or number of teachers etc. would be redundant, as rating
agencies would evaluate institutions based on output, peer evaluation and other
relevant aspects.
Phasing
The reform could be
phased in gradually if political/administrative risk aversion makes it
necessary. They could start with Tertiary education and extend to Secondary
education within 3 years and to Primary education thereafter. We could also start by freeing entry of
Non-profit organizations (domestic and foreign) registered under the societies
act, trusts and co-operatives and follow it up with entry for registered
education companies(within three years).
We could immediately
allow free entry of A grade global universities (the top 500-1000
universities/colleges in the World, which have been identified by various
studies/agencies) into India.
100% ownership of the local unit by the international
unit would ensure 100% commitment to quality as they would like to maintain
their brand equity.
B grade global universities would have to
register and get local grading like the domestic ones. The entry of C grade global
universities/colleges/ institutions should require prior approval and tight
regulation.
Government Resources
As per ASER surveys, in 2010 nationally,
46.3% of all children in Std. V could not read a Std. II level text. This
proportion increased to 51.8% in 2011 and further to 53.2% in 2012. For Std. V
children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children unable to
read Std. II level text has increased from 49.3% (2010) to 56.2% (2011) to
58.3% (2012).
The State governments should focus their
attention and resources on ensuring genuine universal primary education. For this purpose all types of
public-partnerships must be explored (e.g. management contracts, capital
subsidies to NGOs). Government school teachers must be made accountable to user
associations consisting of parents and grand parents of school age children
and/or local government. This can be
done by giving authority to these associations (progressively) to (a) Grade teachers (negative marking for class
absence), (b) determine a part of their salary (10% say) and finally (c) to
dismiss them depending on the grade teachers receive over 3 to 5 years.
The Central Government’s higher education
funds should be focussed on promoting science education, generation of PhD s
& good college/university teachers
and financing of R&D in all subjects. They should also be used to set a comprehensive
E-education platform that can be accessed by all NGOs, teachers and students.
Conclusion
The availability
and quality of education in India can be transformed by introducing modern
regulations and promoting competition.
This requires an objective rating system an free entry of highly rated
educational institutions. Government can then focus on those areas that only it
can do best and where private education systems are known to be inadequate.
------------
A version of this article
appeared on the OpEd page of the Economic Times on June 11, 2015 under the
banner, “India Needs Higher Learning Excellence.”
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