Varsities short of govt funds

Updated on: Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The state and Central governments aspire to make India a leading destination on the education front, but this remains a dream because of lack of government funding. Educationists say with lack of government funding, several state-run universities struggle to survive.

Eminent educationist, Dr S.S. Rajagopalan, said the state government fails to accord maximum priority to the education sector as it allots more funds for other sectors. “We have been urging the state government for decades together to invest in public schooling system so that government schools can compete with the private ones and provide high-quality education, which never happened,” he said.

Elaborating, Dr Rajagopalan said in the past, governments used to invest more in education but now funding has dropped drastically. “Various committees and commissions constituted by the Central government recommended that 6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) should be allocated for education but it still remains a dream,” he added.

The administrator of a state university, who did not want to be named, said it was not clear on what grounds the University Grants Commission (UGC) funds a university as century-old universities get meagre funding and decade-old ones get more.

“UGC has granted only Rs 19.37 crore for our university, which is more than 50 years old, but a younger university in the north gets Rs120 crore. I don’t know the rationale behind this is. UGC has to look at students strength and other parameters before funding before sanctioning funds,” he said.

A committee headed by late president Radhakrishnan recommended to the Union government to set aside 6 per cent of its GDP for education. The National Knowledge Commission also suggested that spending for higher education sector should be increased.

Varsities short of govt funds

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