The government passed the historic right to education Act (RTE Act) making education a fundamental right of every child.
The Act makes it obligatory for the government to ensure that every child in the six to 14 years age group gets free elementary education.
According to government estimates, there are nearly 220 million children in the relevant age group, of which 4.6%, or nearly 9.2 million, are out of school.
Under the Act, local bodies and state governments will undertake household surveys and neighbourhood school mapping to ensure that all children are sent to school.
Given the sheer scale of this programme and the complexities involved, a large number of issues need to be resolved.
The Act mandates that even private educational institutions have to reserve 25% seats for children from weaker sections. The intent of the law is noble and the government must provide adequate budgetary support to ensure its success.
The government has estimated a requirement of Rs 1.71 lakh crore in the next five years for implementation of the RTE Act. This will put a huge burden on the government - and it is hoped that it would not be at the expense of higher education.
There has been a crisis brewing in the higher education sector in the country. The statistics tell the story. Though, with nearly 26,500 institutes of higher education (504 universities and university level institutions and 25,951 colleges), India has one of the largest education systems in the world, the gross enrollment ratio is estimated at just 12.4%. This compares poorly with the global average of 23-54.6% for developed and 22% for Asian countries.
The higher education infrastructure is inadequate to support India's ambitious targets of increased enrolment, suffers from severe issues of quality and relevance to the job market and cannot provide universal access to training and education.
A recent study conducted by PwC indicates that the growth of the sector is constrained not so much by willingness or ability to pay, as by supply and availability of quality and relevant education.
The greatest hurdle is the huge capital required to fund expansion of education---we estimate that $21 billion capex and $7.5 billion opex would be required to meet the XI Plan GER target of 15%.
Given the huge gap between demand for quality education and limited supply, there is tremendous interest and potential for private investment.
However, the requirement of a not-for-profit entity sponsoring an educational institution has excluded all private investment. In essence, the only private capital flowing in is through CSR initiatives.
The government really has no choice but to think imaginatively of all possible ways of resource augmentation.
For instance, to encourage CSR investment into the sector, the government could consider giving tax incentives for setting up educational institutions. The government must also do a rethink on its long-standing position that educational institutions must be run on a not-for-profit model. At least, it could consider giving investors some space for recovering the huge capex and making legitimate profits by permitting the physical infrastructure to be housed in a profit company.
With Kapil Sibal having taken charge of the ministry of human resource development (HRD), there is a prospect of genuine change in Indian higher education. The government has set in motion comprehensive reforms of the education sector to completely restructure the legal and regulatory environment of higher education.
The government has tabled five Bills in Parliament which address issues such as quality and benchmarking (mandatory accreditation and foreign universities), malpractices, overarching body and facilitate speedy resolution of disputes. These are certainly expected to overhaul the face of higher education sector in the country. These Bills are the first major reform initiatives in higher education in free India, demonstrating the changing mindset of the government for opening up a sector that is crucial for India's sustainable growth in the global knowledge economy.
The forthcoming budget is expected to increase allocation for primary education. It is hoped that the finance minister will also make an increase in the allocation for higher and technical education and provide additional incentives for private participation in vocational training. Vocational education, a goal enunciated in the national policy on education (NPE), still remains elusive. It is neither integrated with mainstream education, nor properly emphasised. The government is working on a national policy on vocational education, and it is expected that this would be finalised in the coming year.
India is poised to be the youngest nation in the world by 2020 with an average age of 29. Unless the policymakers are successful in doing an overhaul, the system of higher, technical and vocational education, to improve quality, relevance and access, India risks frittering away its demographic dividend.
The writer is leader education practice at PwC India
| Edited By: Dhiraj Mathur |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 06:51 AM IST
