Power and Prospect of Higher Education with the Prism of Budget 2020.

Seeing the power of education and human capital in this VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world, honourable Finance Minister (FM) Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has allocated INR 99,311.52 crore for the financial year 2021 (FY21) which is around 5 percent more than the fund allocated for FY20.

In today’s world the impactful and instant processes of upskilling and reskilling the labor force, have become the most pertinent tasks before the nations. And it has become the biggest risk as well.

 Here is what Alphabet CEO- Sundar Pichai said at World Economic Forum 2020 “the biggest risk will be failing to grasp the AI’s potential for good”.  Meaning hereby, imparting the requisite skills among people is the only weapon for the sustainable progress of the nation.

 In the budget 2020, FM has taken many path-breaking decisions, including FDI & ECB in the higher education sector, the allocation of INR 3000 crore for skill development and much more. Seeing the demographic dividend, India’s case becomes highly crucial- by 2030, India is set to have the largest working-age population in the world. Not only do they need literacy, but they also need both job and life skills” this is what FM said during her budget speech.

The importance and power of education (Shiksha and Vidya are considered equivalent to term education) have epenthetically talked and imbibed in Indian civilization, much before the intellectual dawn of the rest of the world. Epochal and sanctified writing of Vedas & Upanishads is the classic example to illustrate our advancement and superiority.

In the today’s VUCA world, high quality of human capital is unquestionably the biggest weapon for the sustainable progress of a nation.

The USA has only 330 million population, but crowned to have, eight out of the top ten universities, the largest Nobel laureates (385), eight out of the top ten companies in terms of market capitalization (excluding Aramco), the largest economy ($20 trillion) and one of the most innovative nation (just behind Switzerland and Sweden) in the world. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)-the world’s the most leading and highly influential international organization empirically reported the power of education in terms of poverty reduction. 

In its 2014 report, it stated that a 10 percent wage-earning increase with one year of education along with the drastic reduction in income disparity, protection from exploitation, improvement in health and enhancement in the status of economic and social well being of people. The economic science Nobel laureate of 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer too echoes the same and through their experimental approaches concluded that the role of education in poverty reduction is quite significant and unavoidable. 

A nation having a decent demographic dividend, but lacks in required skill among people, prove to be disastrous.

 India has the largest young (241 million people, 15-24 years old) and quality Vidya Veehin population posing big challenges for excellent sustainable progress, if not addressed seriously.  

The rich tradition of education in India is as old as human civilization. Gurukuls and Guru-Shishya Parampara developed way back some thousands of years ago. Imparting Vedic education within the system of Gurukuls made India once Vishwa Guru. But Macaulay’s controversial writings and approaches wiped out the traditional and ancient teaching and learning process and we have reached a point where it has become event management.

 From primary to higher education system is going in a very painful and troubling situation. Despite having the third-largest education system in the world, most of its outcome is worse than the world average. 

According to the HRD Ministry Report 2019; there are 933 universities, 39931 colleges, and 10725 standalone institutions in India. Out of these Universities, there are 548 General, 142 Technical, 63 Agriculture & Allied, 58 Medical, 23 Law, 13 Sanskrit, 9 languages and rest 106 universities are of other categories. Interestingly 60.53 percent of colleges are located in rural areas. Only 2.5 percent of colleges run a Ph.D. Program and 34.9 percent of colleges run post-graduate level programs. Among the public universities around 97 percent of student study in state universities and only 3 percent study in central university, but 57.50 percent of government, higher education budget goes to central university and premier institute like IITs and IIMs.

 The outcome of these fascinating numbers is- GER in higher education is 26.3 percent, which is slightly lower than the world average of 27 percent and around 55 percent less than the US (85%) and 20 percent less than China. More than 70 percent of India’s young population between the age of 18-23 years old have not yet enrolled in higher education.

 This is an outcome of India’s effort being made since last more than seventy years. The political dividend from this sector is not short term, that’s the reason why political parties in the democratically governed nation less enthusiastic to invest in this sector. Total government expenditure on the education sector from 1950 to now has increased from 0.64 percent of GDP to 4.6 percent (2019-20), and at the same time size of the economy has increased from around $35 billion to $2726 billion.   

Indianization, especially in the education sector has no more remained in India and westernized wind of globalization has dominated the teaching-learning process. But the irony is, we have not changed ourselves the way it should be concerning the rest of the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) world. As a result, there is a huge imbalance between inclusion and excellency caused to the mammoth mismatch between demand and supply of skilful labor forces. 

HRD Ministry Report 2019, reveals that 23.3 lakh degrees awarded to B.A. A student followed by B.Sc.  (11.6 lakh) and B.com (9.6 lakh) and 40,813 for Ph.D. Students in the year 2018. 

A large number of populations getting education still not get equipped enough to be observed productivity in the workforce. In the era of technology-driven globalization majority of Indian universities are not imparting the requisite skill among the students. 

According to the India Skills Report 2018 (Wheebox), only 4.7 percent of India’s workforce is formally trained compared with Germany’s 75 percent and Korea’s 96 percent. 

In the latest Human Capital Index, India ranked 115th position and its index score is even below the average score of South Asia. Expenditure on research and development is a highly important aspect of ensuring the high quality of human capital. But India’s story is altogether very different. 

 Since the year 2000, India’s expenditure on research and development to GDP has virtually remained stagnant in the range of 0.73%-0.87%, which is lower than all countries in the BRICS group and less than one-third of the US (2.74%) and Europe (1.85%). 

The world ranking of our universities is the most factual argument to depict the miserable condition of our higher education system. In the latest QS university ranking[1] only three Indian institutions made in top 200, namely, IIT-B with 172 ranks; Indian Institute of Science with 185 Rank and IIT-D with 193 Rank and only seven Indian institutions got placed in the top 400 out of which 6 are Indian Institutes of Technology. Although earlier also, only seven Indian institutions (out of which six were IITs) were able to make into top 400 but when compared individually with the previous one, the ranking has been dropped.

 The quality of education in traditional based university is the biggest concern these days. Many universities and colleges have a very disturbing student/faculty ratio. Even if the ratio is considered good, somewhere the quality of delivery in the classroom is highly questionable and unsatisfactory. It’s not only because some of the teachers are not competent enough and entered into the system because of good bonhomie, the system to have made them do so.

 Here maximum current generation teachers are so-called accidental teachers. They start their higher study by seeing the dream of cracking UPSC or some other government job and thus complete their graduation and post-graduation and in fact Ph.D. just to pursue their dream (not for becoming a teacher or academician). Once they fail to get their dream, they think to crack NET and then enter into the teaching line. If the academics become an optional and secondary choice for the young brilliant minds, then the quality of delivery has to be compromised. 

Here is what TRS Subramanian wrote in the draft report of NEP- “Quality of many universities and college and the standard of education they provide are far from satisfactory.” The problem of academic leadership at the top level is also non-avoidable concerning the quality of education.

 Vice-Chancellor provides academic leadership and administrative skill for the successful progression of any university. What if the leadership is not competent enough? Here is what Madras High Court stated; “the heads of universities and the most visible symbols of the university system are these days appointed not because they are distinguished academicians, but because they have the right political connections in the Ministry of Human Resources Development in the case of central universities, or appropriate political or caste affiliation in the concerned state- in many cases they pay huge amount of money.” 

The common issues exist in the higher education system is the lack of accountability across universities in India. Although the free flow working environment in the higher education system is also equally important, but not at the cost of quality and performance. There is a lack of a strict performance-based appraisal system. Although monitoring and governing such a system in itself is a tedious task. Self-interlocking system seems to be more suitable in such kind of system.