EDUCATION REFORMS
Reform Proposed
1. These include the abolition of examinations at the Class X level,
2. The unification of syllabi of higher secondary courses and the introduction of a national common entrance examination.
3. Moves towards public-private-partnership in education,
4. The legislation on the Right to Education, the proposal to create a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), and
5. Steps towards compulsory accreditation, foreign direct investment and prevention of unfair practices also come in the same genre.
Over All Approach
1. There is a significant national consensus on the three broad objectives of enhancing access, equity and excellence.
2. An increased awareness of the pivotal role of education in national development finds reflection in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. The overall financial allocation for education is five times that of the Tenth Plan.
3. The Prime Minister is justified in calling the Eleventh Plan an education plan.
Criticism of Reforms Proposed
Education concerns all the people. Different individuals and groups have different concerns in education, which have to be reconciled in policy planning and implementation Therefore a healthy solution to the problem lies in decentralising the process of policy making and implementation. Unfortunately, the MHRD is moving in the opposite direction, at a very fast pace.(to an extent against the spirit of Federalism)s
1. Take, for instance, the decision to enforce a common syllabus, textbooks and examination for Plus-Two courses.
Ø The National Curriculum Framework 2005, drafted under the chairmanship of Professor Yash Pal, observed that the “ pluralistic and diverse nature of Indian society” demanded the preparation of “ a variety of textbooks and other materials” to “ cater to the diverse needs of different groups of students” so as to “ promote children's creativity, participation and interest and thereby enhancing their learning.”
Ø In pursuance of the objective, the States were encouraged to develop their own curriculum framework in a participative manner. The above stated decision is like a volte face, that too without the sanction of a new curriculum framework.
Ø This will amount to undermining the structural and curricular reforms initiated during the term of the first United Progressive Alliance government.
2. The administrative convenience that a centralised common entrance examination will provide is touted as the excuse.
Ø As a result objective of education is reduced to coaching students for competitive examinations, conducted in a rigid framework.
Ø The idea of education as an inclusive process of unleashing the creative potential of diverse groups and individuals, leading to the creation of harmony in variety, which Professor Yash Pal dreamt of, is lost in the process.
3. The story of the legislation to set up the NCHER is no different.
Ø While the broad administrative objective of bringing all educational activities within a single central regulatory framework as suggested by the National Knowledge Commission and the Yash Pal Committee have only been partially met (as medical and agricultural education are kept out of the Commission's purview), the academic objective of giving greater autonomy to universities, colleges, teachers and students have been ignored.
Ø The heart of the problem lies in the failure to define autonomy and accountability as the academics' freedom to do what society expects them to do. Such an understanding would necessitate appropriate Central and State regulations, leaving room for academic initiatives and administrative flexibility at the institutional and individual level.
Ø The proposed NCHER Bill unfortunately tends to centralise powers in the hands of a few experts, who would be invisibly but effectively controlled by the Central government, leaving little role for States in higher education.
4. The framers of the Constitution, exposed to the trauma of Partition and divisive domestic demands posing challenges to the unity and integrity of the nation, conceived a constitutional framework with a unitary slant.
Ø Still, they left education in the State List, obviously in appreciation of India
Ø Education was moved to the Concurrent List during the Emergency through strong-arm tactics. Nevertheless, it was done constitutionally, at least in form, through an amendment to the Constitution.
Ø Now decisions are being taken by the Central government unilaterally, as though education is in the Union List.
1. In the process it is usurping some of the powers for policy making and regulation that the States enjoyed.
2. The federal spirit of the Constitution is infringed upon in the process.
3. The objective of promoting harmony in variety through a pluralistic educational system is also defeated.
Right to Education (Discussion) Now that India
1. This right is different from the other rights enshrined in the Constitution, in this
Ø The beneficiary —a six-year old child — cannot demand it, nor can she or he fight a legal battle when the right is denied or violated. In all cases, it is the adult society which must act on behalf of the child.
Ø In another peculiarity, where a child's right to education is denied, no compensation offered later can be adequate or relevant. This is so because childhood does not last. If a legal battle fought on behalf of a child is eventually won, it may be of little use to the boy or girl because the opportunity missed at school during childhood cannot serve the same purpose later in life.
1. This may be painfully true for girls because our society permits them only a short childhood, if at all.
2. Tenacious prejudice against the intellectual potential of girls runs across our cultural diversity, and the system of education has not been able to address it.
2. The law does not cover pre-school education ie Coverage of early childhood (ie before six year of age )
Ø (relevance)A first step can be recognising the year before Class I as a necessary pre-school year to provide an enabling experience for the success of eight years of formal education stipulated by law.
Ø This step would require substantial planning and coordination among the departments of Child Development, Health and Education.
3. It offers no vision of systemic reforms leading to a decent common school system.
Ø (Present status of divisiveness) A vast gap of resources, facilities and efficiency exists between the private schools which cater for the better-off strata of society and the ones run by the government.
1. Within government schools, there is a vast difference between Central schools and those run by municipalities and village panchayats.
Ø (Decision taken )Though there is a provision for 25 per cent reserved seats for poor children in all private schools as well as Central schools makes a gesture towards the common school model.
1. Critics of the RTE rightly find it a weak gesture and moreover it is difficult to implement
Ø (Public v/s pvt debate) Some believe that the RTE can best be implemented by market forces and the government should subsidise these forces by distributing school vouchers.
1. (favour)This remarkable philosophy sees the RTE as a crowning moment in the ongoing history of the state's withdrawal from education.
2. Critics of the RTE rightly suspect that it could speed up commercial privatisation.
4. The shortage of qualified teachers.
Ø (present scenario)Going by RTE norms, at least a million teachers will need to be freshly recruited and trained.
1. The challenge of teacher recruitment and training will prove especially grim in the Hindi belt and the northeast, West Bengal, and Jammu and Kashmir
2. This also holds true for mega-cities like Delhi
3. For the southern States where the system is in better health, the RTE will pose the challenge of radical improvement in quality.
4. Kerala and Tamil Nadu are better placed than any other State to implement the RTE with confidence, but even they require radical measures to improve teacher training.
Ø Other concerned areas
1. The courses available are uninspiring and based on obsolete ideas.
2. The pedagogic perspective of the National Curriculum Framework (2005) is yet to percolate into teacher education programmes.
Ø Steps taken
1. The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has reinforced this message of the RTE by demanding a higher entry-level qualification for elementary teachers' training.
2. The NCTE has also sent a strong policy signal that all courses for this level should come under the purview of universities.
3. These signals will require sustained follow-up action, for which the NCTE will have to improve its own functioning and image as a regulatory body
5. (Role of NCTE) While the RTE's future depends on the initiative and resolve of the State governments, the Centre's role is going to be crucial too ie.institutional strength and capacity to deliver the RTE.
Ø The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR),has given the responsibility to monitor the RTE
1. It is supposed to keep a vigilant eye on several million classrooms where children are to be taught and protected from corporal punishment, mental harassment and discrimination
Ø For a national commission to serve children in every corner of the country, it must have good State-level units with district-level branches.
1. As of now, the NCPCR's presence in most States is barely symbolic.
Ø Between the responsibility entrusted to it and its apparatus, there is a vast gap.
1. It has no academic staff to study cases and to work with the States to find solutions.
Ø Its first chairperson, Professor Shantha Sinha, was a tall academic figure who put in a monumental effort to make its presence felt.
Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical and Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, 2010
Steps Taken
1. The bill recognises transparency in the functioning of educational institutions.
Ø The bill makes it mandatory for educational institutions to publish details of fee structure, admission procedure, faculty, infrastructure, syllabi, etc, on the website/prospectus of the institution.
Ø There are provisions to prohibit collection of admission fee and other fees without receipts.
Ø There are also provisions for the imposition of monetary penalties (upto 50 lakh) which include penalty for non performance according to prospectus, for accepting capitation fee, for withholding documents, for misleading advertisement, etc.
Ø There is an appropriate mechanism in the form of tribunals which have sufficient powers to adjudicate on issues arising from enforcement of the law.
Limitations
1. There are no provisions to regulate the three vital concerns of students, namely admission, fees and content of courses.
Ø The bill seeks to limit social and academic accountability of educational institutions to merely ensuring transparency in the process of admission and levy of fees.
Ø The larger issues of social justice and excellence in education are totally ignored.
2. There is no provision in the bill for an admission procedure based on a common entrance test (CET) and centralised counselling conducted by the agency of the State
Ø Silent regarding the allotment of seats among various categories of students including SC/ST/OBC/Minorities.
Ø There is also no provision for a differential fee structure on the basis of merit/income of students.
Ø Moreover, the operation of admission and fee regulatory committees set up by various State governments, including Kerala, in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court could possibly be challenged, once the Central law comes to occupy the field.
3. The bill overcomes the restrictions on commercialisation of education, which law courts have been consistently upholding.
Ø Even TMA Pai judgment, despite its reformist sympathies, had ruled that profiteering in education was unconstitutional.
1. The new bill only recognizes corporate responsibilities and corporate ethics.
2. Imparting education would cease to be charitable activity, even in name, and become a business activity, sanctioned by law, with the enactment of the bill.
3. The restrictive interpretation of unfair practices would keep the vast majority of academic and social offences out of the ambit of the present bill.
History of Bill
A Central legislation empowering States to regulate admission, fees and content of education in private professional educational institutions had become necessary to offset the judgment of the Supreme Court in TMA Pai Foundation case in 2002, which had unsettled the arrangements made for common entrance test and differential fees through the Unnikrishnan judgment in 1993.
Other attempts
Attempts were made twice during the first UPA regime to enact a central legislation for regulating private educational institutions.
1. The first draft legislation was prepared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in 2005 and posted on its website for consultation.
2. The second draft was prepared by a committee appointed by UGC in 2007. The Private Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fee) Bill, 2005
Ø (Provisions) It had certainly not fully addressed the demand for a law ensuring admission according to merit and reservation and fee structure according to the paying capacity of the parent.
Ø However, the principles of Common Entrance Test (CET), centralised counselling, allotment of seats among various categories including weaker sections and differential fees were accommodated.
Efforts by UGC
The UGC brought out its draft legislation two years later in the form of “Admission and Fee Structure in Private Aided and Unaided Professional Educational institutions, 2007.” This had provisions ..
Ø This empowered the State/Union Territory governments to regulate universities set up within the State/UT.
Ø These provided for allotment of seats under Government General Quota, Government Reserved Quota, and Institutional Quota and Management Quota.
1. Such quotas would be variable for minority and non-minority institutions.
Ø There were also provisions for regulating admission through CET and centralised counselling conducted by agencies appointed by the State.
Ø There could be variable fee structure determined by fee regulatory committees appointed by the State, taking into account the socio economic realities in each State.
Ø In addition to the above, there were also adequate provisions for ensuring transparency in the functioning of educational institutions and for imposing exemplary penalties on those institutions which fail to comply with the regulations.
Both drafts(ie UGC and UPA’s bill )had actually addressed the concerns of equity and excellence in professional education to a large extent. Unfortunately they were allowed to lapse.
Why we need them ?
Reasons
1. Although India's higher education system, with more than 13 million students, is the world's third largest, it only educates around 12 per cent of the age group, well under China's 27 per cent and half or more in middle-income countries.
Ø Thus, it is a challenge of providing access to India
2. India
Ø Almost all of India
Ø India
3. India
Ø More than a third of Indians remain illiterate after more than a half century of independence.
Ø On April 1, a new law took effect that makes primary education free and compulsory.
1. While admirable, it takes place in a context of scarcity of trained teachers, inadequate budgets, and shoddy supervision.
2. Others changes are also made(like NCHER etc) but it is unclear how it might work .
4. Current plans include the establishing of new national “world-class” universities in each of India
Ø These plans, given the inadequate funds that have been announced and the shortage of qualified professors, are unlikely to succeed.
Ø The fact is that academic salaries do not compare favourably with remuneration offered by India
Ø Many of India 's top academics are teaching in the United States , Britain Ethiopia and Eritrea
This lack of capacity will affect India India
Why welcome foreigners?
1. The foreigners are expected to provide the much needed capacity and new ideas on higher education management, curriculum, teaching methods, and research.
2. It is hoped that they will bring investment.
3. Top-class foreign universities are anticipated to add prestige to India
Limitations of above stated assumptions?
1. While foreign transplants elsewhere in the world have provided some additional access, they have not dramatically increased student numbers.
Ø Almost all branch campuses are small and limited in scope and field. In the Persian Gulf, Vietnam , and Malaysia
Ø Branch campuses are typically fairly small and almost always specialised in fields that are inexpensive to offer and have a ready clientele such as business studies, technology, and hospitality management. Few branch campuses bring much in the way of academic innovation.
Ø The branches frequently have little autonomy from their home university and are, thus, tightly controlled from abroad. While some of the ideas brought to India
2. Foreign providers will bring some investment to the higher education sector, particularly since the new law requires an investment of a minimum of $11 million — a kind of entry fee — but the total amount brought into India
Ø Experience shows that sponsoring universities abroad seldom spend significant amounts on their branches — major investment often comes from the host countries such as the oil-rich Gulf states
Ø It is very likely that the foreigners will be interested in “testing the waters” in India
3. Global experience shows that the large majority of higher education institutions entering a foreign market are not prestigious universities but rather low-end institutions seeking market access and income.
Ø The new for-profit sector is especially interested in global expansion as well.
Ø Top universities may well establish collaborative arrangement with Indian peer institutions or study/research centres in India
1. There may be a few exceptions, such as the Georgia Institute of Technology, which is apparently thinking of a major investment in Hyderabad
At least in the immediate and mid-term future, it is quite unlikely that foreign initiatives will do what the Indian authorities hope they will accomplish.
Government and Foreign University
1. The proposed legislation requires an investment of $11 million upfront by a foreign provider in the India
Ø Moreover, the foreign provider is restricted from making any profit on the Indian branch.
2. It is not clear if the Indian authorities will evaluate a foreign institution before permission is given to set up a branch campus or another initiative — or if so, who will do the vetting.
3. It is not clear if the foreign branches will be subject to India
Ø If the foreigners are required to admit large numbers of students from low-income families who are unlikely to afford high foreign campus fees and often require costly remedial preparation, creating financially stable branches may be close to impossible.
4. A further possible complication may be the role of State governments in setting their own regulations and conditions for foreign branches.
Ø Indian education is a joint responsibility of the Central and State governments — and
Ø Many States have differing approaches to higher education generally and to foreign involvement in particular.
In short, many unanswered questions remain on just how foreigners will be admitted to India
Such arguments assume that there are universal parameters for quality and that competition would inevitably bring about improvement of quality.
1. The first of these assumptions ignores the organic character of higher education.
Ø Quality in education cannot be manufactured to order or transplanted across continents. It is rooted in the environment and the tradition in which it grows. It is linked up with time and milieu, with the project of nation-building.
Ø It evolves itself gradually. The short-cut of manufacturing quality through foreign universities or their Indian imitations ignores the importance of creativity.
Ø New knowledge is created through an arduous process of research. Scholars point out that the essence of modern research is interdisciplinarity, which is enriched through assimilation of knowledge from diverse sources, but degenerates through transplantation or imitation of external models.
Ø Courses transplanted across continents through off-campus centres will have little authenticity and relevance to the new environment.
2. The impact of even the best of off-campus courses of the best of universities delivered by the best of faculty on the overall quality of Indian education would be marginal.
Ø Our IITs and IIMs give us the clue. These have all along been isolated islands of excellence, contributing little to the general improvement of Indian higher education. While there may be some truth in the accusation of social insensitivity of these premier institutions, the reasons for their failure to significantly invigorate Indian higher education run deeper.
Ø External agencies can only play a minimal role in the process of quality enhancement. Improvement of quality is brought about through an internal process. External agencies can at best assist the process, but cannot substitute internal processes.
3. The unquestioning faith in the usefulness of competition is based on two myths: that the foreign educational providers would have the same mission as Indian universities and that both would share the same platform for their operations.
Ø The avowed mission of public universities in the country is to contribute to the project of nation-building.
Ø Would the foreign educational providers be bound by the mission of nation-building? It is very unlikely that foreign universities would be driven by altruistic motives of improving Indian higher education, as their main motive is profit earning .
4. Given the colonial hangover for foreign labels, a substantial number of bright students are likely to prefer off-campus centres of second-rate foreign universities to the best of Indian universities.
Ø This would not only ruin their academic prospects, but also potentially contribute to the intellectual impoverishment of Indian institutions.
Ø Whatever little research is undertaken in the Indian institutions is likely to suffer as a result of unhealthy competition with foreign educational providers.
Ø In their struggle for survival, average universities might compete with foreign educational providers in offering marketable courses at competitive rates and neglect their primary responsibilities towards the study of basic disciplines, research and extension.
5. The National Knowledge Commission presumes that setting up 1,500 universities and 50,000 colleges could address the question of access.
Ø A mere increase in the number of institutions or seats alone would not ensure greater access. What we need is equitable access, which foreign educational providers will not provide, more so as there is no cap on the fees and no provision for reservation of seats — both of which would tend to strengthen the existing iniquities in Indian higher education.
Ø In a country like India
How, then, do we increase access to and quality in, higher education?
The modernisation of higher education requires huge investments. The requirement of inclusiveness further demands massive public investment.
1. At present, government expenditure on education as a whole is only 3.5 per cent of GNP. The sectoral allocation for higher education is a meagre 0.37 per cent of the GNP.
Ø Going by the recommendations of the Kothari Commission and a committee appointed by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), public expenditure on education should be increased to at least 6 per cent of GNP, of which 25 per cent should be set apart for higher education.
2. With all the rhetoric about the 11th Plan being an “education plan,” the actual allotment in the Plan for major schemes in higher education is estimated to be only 12 per cent of the actual requirement of Rs. 252,000 crore.
Ø The rest of the investment is sought to be raised through public-private-partnership (PPP), which could actually result in large-scale privatisation of public assets, thereby shrinking even the limited spaces available for the poor.
3. The Central budget for higher education for the current fiscal shows only an increase of 15 per cent over the last year. It has to be further increased .
Academic collaboration with the best of universities could help improve quality, unlike direct intervention by foreign educational providers.
1. While such collaborations have always existed, we need to increase their scope and extent in the future.
2. The “Erudite” scheme which has been implemented in the State (Kerela) is a scholar-in-residence programme which provides avenues for teachers and students to collaborate with internationally reputed scholars. A large number of scholars including Nobel laureates have visited the universities in the State during the last one year.
3. The essence of such mutually beneficial academic collaboration is partnership based on equality. It cannot be based on a relationship of superiority and inferiority. It has to recognise the kaleidoscopic character of quality in higher education and the value of mutually enriching collaborative learning processes.
