India’s higher education system is the largest in the world with over 70 million students. The country has more than 36,000 higher education institutes, contributing 59.7 per cent of the market size. That puts the the education sector on the centerstage. The Government has been trying to change the present status quo, and therefore, education had listed amongst the ‘nine pillars’ of 2016-17 year budget.
The Government has taken up several initiatives since last year Budget to restructure the higher education system and make it relevant to the present needs, such as:
New Education Policy: The Ministry of Human Resource Development started the collaborative and multi-stakeholder consultation process for formulating the New Education Policy.
New Institutes: The Government has initiated the setting up of four more Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Jammu, Chhattisgarh, Goa, and Karnataka and one IIM in Jammu and one IISER in Orissa.
National Digital library (NDl): The Government has envisaged the creation of a NDl for providing an access to the knowledge repository in terms of books, e-learning material, encyclopedia, journals, etc for the benefit of the reading community at large.
Vocational education: There is an agreement between India and Germany on vocational education and skill development with a budget of $ 3.37 million, to create and improve cooperative workplace-based vocational training in India’s industrial clusters.
The Budget for education saw a single-digit hike during the previous fiscal year. This year, it can witness a double-digit growth rate in terms of budget allocation as felt by the leading educationists as close to 50 per cent of India’s population is below the age of 25 and as much percentage of the population is directly affected by the education budget. The expectations from the higher education advocates across the country are for a ‘good budget’ revolve around following two issues:
Regular monitoring: The new IIMs and other institutes require able leadership, competent faculty and sound resource base. The opening of new institutions is not a solution to fill in the delivery gap, but their growth is must for steering the path of education. Thus, regular mentoring and counselling of these institutions is must.
Recognition to good faculty: There is dearth of good faculty at all levels. Moreover, teachers don’t get the due recognition which is demotivating. In Government institutions, there is still grievance machinery but what about private institutions of repute, which have rules and process only on paperIJ Budget should come out with initiatives for faculty at the national level in terms of resources, incentives and support system for retaining and attracting the talent in academia.
Research and development: These should be strong impetus on providing necessary funding for infrastructure and research and development requirement. The Government needs to address various gaps:
· Education sector needs structured education reforms.
· A through restructuring academic programme is needed.
· Greater emphasis must be placed on the recruitment of adequate and good quality teachers who are regular and sincere in their performance.
(The writer is Prof Sandeep Goel, associate professor, Finance, MDI Gurgaon)