A very long way to go

Value education is one of the pillars of the modern democratic society. India with its 1.3 billion population is heading towards becoming one of the top five global economies in the next few years. 

We know that higher education and global economy are linked through multiple pathways. Demographically speaking, India is a young nation with an average age of 28 years. Approximately half of the India population is currently under 25 years of age. This demographic dividend that India is witnessing can only be realized if our future workforce is appropriately educated and skilled for the demands of the both global and Indian economy. 

So, let us critically review the situation of higher education in our country to understand whether we would be able to make best use of this demographic opportunity. 

As per the latest estimates, in 2017, there were approximately 26,000 universities across the world. Majority of these are located in the United States of America and Europe. India has around 819 universities; half of these are publicly funded universities either through state government or central government. In comparison, China has around 2,900 universities. 

Given that both India and China have similar population size, India is lagging far behind in terms of the number of universities per million population, which has resulted into limited opportunity and access to higher education in the country. 

One important indicator, Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) (the ratio of the number of persons in the class-group to the number of persons in the corresponding age group) clearly shows neglect of higher education in our country. 

Latest estimates of All India Survey of Higher Education suggest that GER for the primary education is 100% whereas for the higher education it is only 25.8%. This essentially means that around 25 persons are pursuing higher education, out of every 100 eligible, which should be corrected. This also highlights our inability to retain talent, which is crucial for the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

Not only are we lacking in terms of absolute numbers, but we are also not faring well on quality parameters employed in higher education. This is clearly reflected in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, 2018. 

No Indian institution appeared in top 100 and only two, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), were in the top 500 in Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018. These institutions are also not universities in the true sense, they are science and technology-driven institutions. 

Again, in comparison, China has two universities in the top 100 and twelve in the top 500. One of the reasons for Indian institutions failing in the global rankings could be the lack of internationalization of our institutions both in terms of faculty as well as students, which adversely impacts their reputation in the highly competitive international education market. 

Lack of research and innovation is another major area of concern. It has been highlighted that all central universities put together contribute less research output than either of the world’s top two ranking universities – University of Cambridge and Stanford University. This is also reflected in statistics related to Indian students pursuing studies abroad, especially in American and European universities. 

This brings us to a critical question – Do we have enough resources to set up world-class institutions? The short answer is yes. But, we have to increase the government expenditure on education, bring in private equity and investments, reform the regulatory landscape to make it responsive to the demands of the higher education sector and make best use of technological edge we have. 

It may be worthwhile to note that the government spending on education as percentage of GDP has not been very encouraging, which has hovered around 4% in this decade. In addition, of the total expenditure, university and higher education had only received 15%, and the rest is directed toward elementary, secondary education and technical education. 

This clearly indicates expenditure on education is substantially low as percentage of GDP and investments in higher education are too small, which must change to improve competitiveness of our higher education sector globally. 

If the governments are not able to make commensurate investments, they should create a conducive policy environment to attract private equity and investment in the higher education sector, but at the same time should ensure regulatory oversight to keep higher education affordable to the masses. 

It would be pertinent to highlight that even with higher resource allocation, we may not be able to match our neighbour in infrastructure construction for universities in the near future. 

The best way forward would be to democratize the education sector by changing the paradigm through the use of technology. Globally more and more universities and students are moving towards web-based education systems, which offer flexibility of self-paced learning and cost advantage to the learners and cost-effective use of resources for the universities. 

India already has a very high penetration of technology; all we need is to properly channelize the available resources to ensure it complements and at times also supplements the existing resources available with higher education institutions. 

One of the ways is to offer formal recognition and regulation of web-based education system to make it at par with on-campus education through an appropriate legal instrument. 

This would be immensely helpful in the expansion of higher education in the shortest span of time with the best use of resources. India should be proactive in embracing the change and leverage the opportunities offered by the web-based education technologies.

To this end, the response of the national government has been commendable on certain fronts, especially in reforms at creating a conducive policy and regulatory framework towards granting autonomy to higher education institutions.

Author is VP– Academics, PHFI