Changing Indian Higher Education System
The modern Higher Education system in
India was built on the promise of Government Jobs and Social Prestige. A very
colonial construct, this was sustained even after independence, and to this
day, the students and their parents often approach Higher Education similarly.
On the other hand, Indian economy is changing rapidly, with the expansion of
the inner market, a result of a deliberate fiscal shift over the last decade
towards the creation of rural demand: The Indian Higher Education, as it stands
today, may not be fit for purpose in context of these rapid changes.
The discussions about ‘demographic
dividend’, and the millions that must enter Higher Education, are omnipresent
in policy-making. However, any serious discussion about Indian Higher Education
must go beyond the headline numbers and take into account the complex realities
of regional variations. The fact that Indian states are very different from one
another, demographically, socially, economically, and that Higher Education has
primarily been a state subject, funded and legislated on by different states
differently, shaped the Higher Education system very differently in different
parts of India. The expansion of the inner market, the rise in purchasing power
of a large number of people without the necessary ‘social capital’ needed for
mobility, brings these regional differences in rather sharp relief.
In the recent months, the structural
difficulties of the Indian economy have been apparent. The fiscally supported
expansion of rural demand has resulted in spiraling inflation because of the
infrastructure bottlenecks and flailing productivity growth. The urban job
creation has slowed or stagnated, salaries have decreased in real terms and
middle class consumption has been squeezed by the rapidly rising interest
rates. The rapid growth of urban prosperity that marked the first half of the
new millennium has stalled, leaving a large and growing urban population in a
limbo.
Higher Education reform assumes a
renewed significance in the face of these changes. It appears to be key to
driving the productivity growth that the Indian economy, and its manufacturing
and service industries, so sorely need. At the time when differences in
regional attainment become so prominent, a regionally focused Higher Education strategy
would help ease social and geographical mobility. A responsive and flexible
system of education is needed to reverse the middle class disenfranchisement,
and with it, one hopes, stem the political decline and the threat of abandonment
of secular and democratic ideals of modern India.
The regulatory system in India has been
the biggest stumbling block towards any meaningful change. Constructed as an
arm of a paternalist State, it was designed to maintain continuity and
discourage experimentation. Based on bureaucratic rather than any academic
culture, fragmented and overlapping, its penal culture and static outlook have
rendered it obsolete in the face of rapid changes within the Indian economy and
society and outside. No observer of Indian Higher Education fails to notice
that the more extensive regulatory guidelines tend to become, the more
ineffective they tend to appear. Some of the Indian regulators publish lists of
not just the institutions they accredit, but those which they don’t: This
un-accredited list contains some of the more successful and respected
institutions in the country, calling in question the validity of the regulatory
system very publicly.
However, the overarching focus on human
capital, the urgency of realizing the demographic dividend, and the emergence
of modern consumer culture in the wider society, make the direction of policy
more significant than the regulatory structure as it exists. The stated policy
intentions of creating a single coordinating body of all forms of Higher
Education, overseeing all state and professional agencies, may be limited in
ambition but based on an welcome recognition of the limitations of the current
system. The increasing openness to private investment, the discussions about
foreign institutions (the two are somewhat connected – as all foreign
institutions will be ‘private’ once they enter India) signal a change of heart,
haltingly may be, but irreversibly.
However, the biggest change in Indian
Higher Education may be happening outside the ‘sector’. A number of innovative
models are emerging, mainly through public-private coalition: These
entrepreneurial models (see Appendix 3) are bringing deep changes while being
outside the regulatory structure. Besides, the students themselves are
disrupting the structure. One of the most enduring myths of Indian Higher
Education is that the students don’t want to study themselves are being
spectacularly broken by the students in distance education (a quarter of the
total), the large numbers self-studying towards IT certifications and the
thousands flocking to MOOCs (13% of 1.2 million EdX students are from India,
second only to 30% from the US*). Use of Education Technology is reaching a fever-pitch,
with Engineering Colleges setting up virtual classrooms to offset the
limitations imposed by local availability of teaching staff. From this vantage
point, Indian Higher Education seems very much to be a case of the ‘System’
catching up with ‘Education’ that is already happening on the ground.
Therefore, it would be fitting to
conclude this report with an optimistic note. India needs to re-imagine its
Higher Education system to suit the requirements of a modern economy, a system
that would be intellectually open and locally grounded. The policy intentions
are already there, the recent pronouncements in RUSA being a clear example (see
Appendix 4). The change at the top may appear lethargic, given the immediacy of
the requirement; but, at the same time, the innovative energy on the ground,
within new start-ups, innovative educators and aspiring students, is abundantly
in evidence. However, in India, top-down change may always come as a
catch-up: The starting point of
thinking about Indian Higher Education may therefore be the thousands of Indian
students studying abroad, the businesses that compete and invest globally, and
the worldwide academic community of Indians. These communities, its dynamic of
aspiration, and that of millions of Indian students trying to achieve a life
better than their parents, may define how Indian Higher Education is shaped in
the coming years.
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* Financial Express, September 23,
2013.
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