The country is immersed in a critical debate on how to reform and rejuvenate its higher education, led by a literate and articulate minister Kapil Sibal. Luckily, two major forward-looking reports (of the Knowledge Commission and the Yash Pal committee) provide vital reference points from which arguments can take off.
A key issue being debated is easing entry, making it much easier to set up institutions with private money — Indian or foreign. This is essential as the needs are huge and there just isn’t enough public money to raise overall supply sufficiently. But it is necessary to do this with eyes wide open. Virtually all the top institutions in the country, as also in developed countries, are public ones and the vast majority of private institutions, ranging from mediocre to abysmal, are solely devoted to making money, imparting quality education being furthest from their minds.
But the irony is that the mushrooming of private institutions has saved the day for India. The Indian software story has been written on the basis of a key global advantage — the scalability of its skills supply. And this has been delivered by the private engineering colleges that proliferate in the south and west of the country. Bangalore and Kolkata at two ends used to earlier, before West Bengal opened up to private institutions, witness an annual ritual — trainloads of youngsters coming to the former in search of seats in private engineering colleges.
Free entry of foreign institutions is another widely debated issue. Its supporters argue that it can address issues of both quantity and quality but most academics feel that the best foreign institutions, which are the ones that a developing country will seek to host, will be in no hurry to come. It is the mediocre and plainly doubtful which will do so. Additionally, the downside increases as Indians often see a foreign label as a mark of quality. There is one way to partially address the issue. The government can proactively seek out and invite a hundred or more leading institutions from the developed world to come to India. It can also greatly ease the residence of foreign scholars in India so that the process opens up minds and all benefit from seeing good scholars and teachers in action. As information about institutions is readily publicly available in developed countries, it is possible to approve individual entries quickly and transparently, leaving out only the unknown and doubtful.
A related argument which, however, needs opposing is that India can become a teaching shop to the world and earn valuable dollars via foreign students. In education, the most scarce input is good teachers and it is difficult to see how there will be enough of them to address the projected needs of higher education-seeking Indian as well as foreign students. Yes, we do need dollars but having a policy to attract student dollars cannot be a priority. Tweaking FDI rules for several industries can deliver much more.
Both the reports have made numerous proposals to address the issue of quality via regulatory, curriculum and examination reform. But it is necessary to remember that if two or five regulators can stumble, so can a single entity resulting from combining them. There is no point in saying that the single regulator should be autonomous. No Indian regulator is entirely so. Bureaucrat and politician have till now ensured that the ministry concerned remains the boss.
In structuring reform it may be most worthwhile putting the teacher at the centre of the thought process. How can we have good teachers, who are paid decent wages, teaching students skills they can use in solving problems, via syllabuses which are not ancient and out of classrooms, labs and libraries that can be so called, and having decent career prospects? If we can get this right the rest will fall in place.
Since this can happen only in the long run, in the short run the following can be addressed. Allow easy institutional entry on the basis of quantifiable, transparent norms; ensure regular evaluation and threaten derecognition for laggards. Have the equivalent of SAT and GRE (these will test abilities and problem-solving skills) so that who gets what kind of students will tell how good institutions are. Also have multiple ratings so that the averages of these tell parents more about institutions. And, of course, pour in lot more public money. The rest has to be left in the hands of the almighty.
