More varsities need to be set up

Updated on: Tuesday, November 15, 2011

In June 2011, Union HRD Minister Mr Kapil Sibal, outlining the measures for expanding Higher Education, had told the Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) that “We need to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (the ratio of the college age population to that enrolled in higher education) to 30 per cent”.

Mr Sibal had reiterated that this would need a three-fold increase in the enrolment in higher education, from 14 million in 2010 to 40 million by 2020.

If we take a reality check, this does not seem feasible at present. Going by the pace of actual work on the ground, this actually seems impossible.

To create a university with a reasonable infrastructure may take two years, but if we need to create the necessary infrastructure to meet a surge in college-going population, the pace of planning, construction activity and infrastructure support certainly needs to go up.

Taking a step back, in its report on “the knowledge society”, the NKC in 2008-09 had talked of the need to create many more universities. The higher education system needs a massive expansion of opportunities, to around 1,500 universities nationwide to enable India to attain a gross enrolment ratio of at least 15 per cent by 2015.

The focus would have to be on new universities, but some clusters of affiliated colleges could also become universities. This would require major changes in the structure of regulation.

India today has over 25,000 affiliated colleges in its out-dated affiliating system. Even if 7 – 10 per cent of the affiliated colleges are upgraded to universities, the numbers look very achievable. Yet, the quality of educational transaction, research and curriculum is questionable in a vast majority of the system.
Academics, however, feel that 10 per cent of the colleges are certainly of reasonable quality and will have the power to endure the test of time.

If the top 7 per cent of affiliated colleges are granted university status with clear-cut conditions to improve their quality assurance and infrastructure, besides teaching and research quality, the numbers projected by the NKC are achievable.

However, the point here is the political will to achieve the same.

Tamil Nadu for example tried to upgrade a few well-known government funded colleges to universities, but the teachers’ unions strongly opposed the move, stating this would defeat the purpose of government funded higher education.

Whether there is meat enough in their argument is a political question. But that cannot take away the need for taking the idea forward and making Indian higher education more robust and nimble to meet the new challenges.

More varsities need to be set up

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