The higher education in Odisha continues to paint a grim picture, saddled as it is with less number of colleges per lakh of population, less number of graduates and post graduates compared nationally, falling teacher-pupil ratio, drastic fall in standard of education and research, apart from poor performance of the students in civil services and other national level examinations.
A recent report of the All India Survey on Higher Education, 2017-18 (AISHE) has clearly pointed out that higher education in Odisha is dominated by the private sector, though it is not clear what it means by private colleges since Odisha has colleges which are completely private owned by business house or trust (self financing colleges) and some others, which get Government aid, yet called private or private-aided.
But whether they are self-financing colleges or private-aided, there is no denying that these colleges far outnumber the Government colleges in the State and hence, take a higher burden in running the system. In other words, with 65 per cent of enrolment of the students going into the kitty of the private sector, the Government colleges just have fewer numbers of students.
In such a scenario, the private aided colleges enjoy a pre-eminence over the years but some of the most pressing problems of these colleges are overlooked by the Government, resulting in fast deterioration of the standard of education. These colleges have a geographical advantage of catering to the need of students of the far flung and tribal-dominated areas, as they are spread over the interior and rural parts.
But since these colleges were set up at the panchayat, block or sub-divisional level, by the common people, they are still having sub standard infrastructure. Many colleges have been built on forest or different kisams of land without Patta. Consequently, they are deprived of NAAC accreditation, UGC and RUSA grants. Since these institutions have been meant for public good, the Government should have been proactive in identifying the specific problems of the institutions, but since there is no coordination between the Higher Education and Revenue Departments, many such rural colleges are still going without land patta.
Another most important problem often hitting the academic ambience of these institutions is the teachers’ strike. Most of the private aided colleges, be they under 488 or 662 categories, have an overwhelming number of teachers getting Block Grant/ GIA in shape of Block Grant etc. Under Block grant, the service is not considered regular and the due salary and perks are denied to the teachers though they have been working for 20-25 years.
Consequently, the teachers stay disgruntled as their demand for Grant-In-Aid (GIA) with service conditions has so far fallen on the deaf ear of the Government. Instead of fulfilling the demands for GIA forthwith, the bureaucracy has been playing hide and seek and trying to create a messy situation by coming out with several orders, laws and by-laws concerning grant that is entangling the Government in innumerable legal rows.
Recently, though CM Naveen Patnaik has announced that the Block Grant has been annulled and all colleges are included under GIA fold, still the teachers don’t feel their service is regular as several conditions have been put, including affidavit, to receive the new GIA. The teachers have alleged that the new GIA is as good as the Block Grant and despite several rounds of discussion with the Government functionaries, the results have been fruitless as the bureaucracy is conspiring to perpetuate the Block Grant system by just giving it a new name.
Consequently, while continuous teachers’ stir over GIA hits the academic side of these colleges, lack of regular principals, massive corruption by the in-charge principals, no regular audit of funds, no transparency in conduct of examination and no regulation of fees and fines have too created an unhealthy trend.
The fast deterioration of standard of education can be attributed to the lackadaisical attitude of the Government since 1990 towards restructuring these institutions, with Congress Government between 1994 and1999 terming them as redundant (the then HE Minister Bhagabata Mohanty using the phrase ‘Mushroom Growth of Colleges’) and the BJD Government in last 18 years cunningly evading the genuine demands for GIA and not granting a single pie for the institutions’ improvement.
But the AISHE exposes that fact that today Odisha has less number of colleges per lakh of its youth population and as many as 36 lakh youths still out of the ambit of higher education. It also says that colleges per lakh youth population in State remained stagnant at 23 in last eight years.