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New Delhi
October 25, 2013
India's higher education system has seen breakneck expansion over the
last couple of decades. From 4.1 million students in universities and
colleges in 1990-91, the number reached 17 million in 2010-11 - most of
them at different stages of pursuing a first degree, but two million at
postgraduate level. The goals for the future are even more ambitious.
The reason is that India's university enrolment
is said to be only about 18 per cent of the target age group, whereas
the world average is 26 per cent; India wants to get to 30 per cent by
2020.
Does this race for numbers make sense, when the Planning Commission says that only 17.5 per cent of graduates
are employable? And when Nasscom (the lobby group for the software
services industry) says that only a fifth of the graduates of
engineering colleges are employable? The plans talk of hundreds more
universities and thousands more colleges, even though a quality ranking
has reported that 62 per cent of the existing universities and 90 per
cent of the existing colleges are either average or below average. Among
the various problems waiting to be addressed, there is a massive
shortage of faculty (according to a report for 2007-08, half the college
posts sanctioned by the University Grants Commission were not filled);
further rapid expansion can only strain the system more. How about
shifting emphasis from quantity to quality, so that more of the existing
universities and colleges can provide a halfway decent education, and
so that their graduates can put their education to good use?
The reality check comes from the southern zone, where state after state
reports that tens of thousands of seats in engineering colleges are
going abegging. This may reflect the economic slowdown (IT education has
suffered the most), but it also points to the exaggerated expansion
that continued even after the signs of excess capacity surfaced five
years ago. Andhra Pradesh reports that 100,000 seats are vacant, while
in Tamil Nadu it is 80,000 and in Karnataka 19,000. Seats are going
unfilled in Kerala for everything from nursing to pharmacology, and from
printing technology to even business education. Even at the Plus Two
stage of schooling, more than 40,000 seats can't find students in Kerala
- where the dramatic decline in the birth rate has resulted in fewer
children. It goes without saying that the poor-quality and/or
price-gouging institutions are the ones that have not found students;
parents and students have both wised up. Meanwhile, hundreds of Indian
students have found medical education in China both cheaper and better!
What may be needed is a university-level equivalent of the NGO Pratham's
Annual Status of Education Report (Aser), which has found repeatedly
that close to half the students in Class V cannot manage tests designed
for Class II students. Aser's annual reports have had an effect, because
the government has recognised that it is not enough to provide more
teachers and schoolrooms; you also need to deliver a good education -
which for the first time has been made a formal objective! Something
similar, done at college and university level, would be equally useful.
There is also the issue of absorption capacity. If poor-quality
graduates work at jobs meant for school leavers, or are unemployed, it
is because the Indian economy does not know what to do with 3-4 million
substandard graduates each year, even as employers say they can't find
suitable people with subject knowledge and the ability to speak and
write logically, clearly and grammatically. Perhaps all that India needs
is two million quality graduates. If the university and college system
can deliver them, instead of chasing enrolment numbers, student and
public money will be better spent and the economy better served.
