Need More Funds For Higher Education

Vice President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that higher education cannot improve in India unless state universities, which are the backbone and represent the bulk of enrollment, are able to obtain greater funds, create new infrastructure and enrich their existing academic programmes.

He further said, "Our Gross Enrollment Ratio in higher education is half of the world's average, two-third's that of developing countries and around a fifth that of developed countries. Even though we have been able to achieve an economic growth rate of 9 per cent of GDP despite low enrollment in higher education, it would not be possible for us to sustain such economic growth, maintain our competitiveness and enhance our productivity without at least doubling our higher education enrollment.

"Unless we can increase access and educational outcomes at secondary and tertiary levels, our demographic dividend might turn into a demographic liability," he said.

He further added, "Its purpose, and ambit, was unambiguously linked to a colonial purpose, namely 'to confine higher education to persons possessing leisure and natural influence' over the minds of their countrymen and who, by attaining a higher standard of modern education 'would eventually produce a much greater and more beneficial change in the ideas and feelings of the community'."

The vice president further stated that today we have 504 universities in the country, with varying statutory bases and mandates. "Of these, 40 are Central Universities, 243 are State Universities, 130 are Deemed Universities, five institutions established under State legislation, 53 are State private Universities, and 33 are Institutions of National Importance established by Central legislation. We have a total teaching faculty of around 6 lakhs in higher education."

The vice president said that contrary to conventional wisdom, gross enrollment in higher education is not directly linked to economic growth and prosperity or to elementary school enrollment. "Thus, for example, some of the economically and educationally backward states with respect to literacy rate and school enrollment, such as Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh have higher enrollments in higher education as compared to relatively better off states such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It would seem that enrollment is a function of a variety of social, cultural, institutional and economic processes and is significantly affected by the availability of educational infrastructure and facilities," he said.

"Second, higher education cannot improve in India unless state universities, which are the backbone and represent the bulk of enrollment, are able to obtain greater funds, create new infrastructure and enrich their existing academic programmes."

"Third, a significant focus of reform should be the college system, numbering around 26000 colleges, where most of the enrollment in higher education occurs. Sadly, under graduate education does not get the attention it deserves in universities amidst paucity of funds for qualitative development and quantitative expansion of colleges."

He also informed about plans by the government to establish colleges in 374 educationally backward districts in the country, representing over 60 per cent of all districts, with shared funding between the state and central governments.

At the end of his speech, the vice president said that everyone is an important stakeholder in the process and urged them to contribute to it "not only as members of the academic community, but more importantly as citizens of this Republic."

"It is only with active engagement that we can hope to mold higher education as an instrumentality to achieve the Constitutional vision propounded by our founding fathers," he concluded.