It’s been Six long years of my life, not a small time, uni-dimensionally working for the cause of
improving the state of higher education in India and still struggling and
continuing to struggle. An ugly thought crosses my mind today when I look back
at some of the decisions I have made, when I decided resign from my plush and
comfortable job to move back from Singapore, surrendering my PR and started
this enterprise with a vision to create a responsive infrastructure to make
every eligible Indian, gainfully employed. After six years of long journey of
meeting over 1000+ colleges across 60+ cities of India and personally
interacting with over 22000+ graduating students, I came to a conclusion that
Indian Higher education in India is a deaf & blind Dinosaur, which is
ignorant about its ignorance and soon to become extinct not without seeding the
incurable epidemic of civil unrest led by zillions of paper degree holders who
know nothing about what they hold nor know what they did intend. The result is
that the system is creating third class paper graduates, I would call just
paper degree holders which they get after paying, 6 or 8 or 4 EMIs and who,
forget being employable, can’t even be under employed in any field. The worst, these
degree holders by being so, are so uprooted from their past ecosystem that they
are not willing to do any mundane yet enterprising jobs because of the weight
of this paper degree. A graduate candidly once told me, “Sir, without this
degree in BE, I could have opened a grocery shop near my village and done
decent business for sustaining my life but with this degree, my parents won’t
let me open a shop in my village as I am an Engineer by degree. Also no one
will take me in corporate world for I know nothing about engineering and for any
other job opportunities, I am over qualified. This degree has become an
incurable disease to me.”
Not one, nor two nor ten but innumerable intertwined problems
are plaguing the higher education system in India. This is a problem in itself,
sometimes I wonder why drop outs have created wonders in this society and
millions of mortals with wonderfully designed degrees are struggling to meet
basic employment for sustaining themselves.
I think if we are serious about higher education then a
fresh and a total fresh thinking is required and piecemeal approach would do
more harm than any visible improvement. If we think higher education is not a
business then a different approach is required. However, I think something
which is not a business can’t sustain and attract good talent from society to
grow. There needs to be an approach which is benevolent business model instead
of the current not for profit model, which alone can change the future of higher
education in India. While I have read many articles about the problems above, I
have not come across anyone giving any definitive solution. I thought I must
share something which can open eyes of think tanks or provide some strategic
thought and direction so that things can change and I would not have done this
in this manner but for our beloved Prime Minister who has inspired and given
hopes to the entire generation.
Here are my Ten Commandments for the refreshing and rejuvenating Indian
Education System:
1. Scrap the system of Trust-led running of
Educational Institutions.
Liberalize the Education System. The trust System is
damaging the cause of Higher education in India. Honestly, there is no trust
left in the trust ships running higher education for there are colleges going
to courts every now and then for increase in fees. There is nothing benevolent
or charitable about these colleges these days with collages demanding sky
rocketing fees and with educational loans getting quite pervasive and consumer
friendly, let Quality begin. Let’s be little brazen in accepting that it is all
about the Business of making money while producing quality graduates. After all,
when the question of death, Insurance, can be a sound business play if
regulated properly, why education can’t be. Let’s resolve to make higher
education a vibrant Industry by liberalizing it allowing people to make money
rather than the current rotten “not for money affair”.
Move Higher education under the preview of Central
Govt. While primary education may remain as a state subject, Higher education
must not since students anyway migrate to the colleges as per their preference
and also graduates become national assets.
2. Set-up a unified regulatory body for Higher
Education akin to TRAI, IRDA, NHAI etc.
As an extension of above, set up
just ONE regulatory body to regulate all aspects of Higher Education in India
can call it anything say, NHERAI. Allow FDI into the system limited to may be
26% to begin with. Let anybody acquire the existing private Universities and
colleges to begin with. Hold on with Govt institutes for the first five years.
Create a Telecom/Insurance kind of Fee structure uniformity across India.
3. Create and Build a National Repository of
All students in Country with the database
showcasing every student’s profile
and Allow the Companies to access this database for campus Hiring Drives on an
ongoing basis.
One of the most disturbing trends in the educational
landscape is the fact that a geographical bimodality exists which means remote
colleges have disproportionate issues of fair access to resources in all
respects. 60 years after independence, it is a shame that nobody in the
educational system knows exactly how many colleges and students are active in
the system at any point of time on a real time basis. Let this repository be
created with the objective of every graduate getting equal opportunity for jobs
based on the qualifications and skills acquired. Let there be a uniform rating
system for students based on skills acquired.
Create a platform using which online and remote
screening and hiring can be done by companies on an ongoing basis. Allow
companies to provide orientation to recruited /pre-recruited candidates to
prepare about the company even before they are screened /join them while they
are still in college. Also the regulatory body can monetise this access by way
of a fee for the access to this platform and companies would be more than happy
to pay for the same.
4. Allow Mergers and Acquisitions amongst
Colleges.
One thing which is in excess in India are no. of
colleges. Allow colleges to merge or acquire or get acquired by corporate world
or foreign Universities. Get these companies to deposit a corpus as guarantee akin
to IRDA. Bring in professionals to run the college. Allow companies to decide
of courses to be offered with approval from the regulator.
5. Moratorium on setting up of new Premier
Institutions like IITs/NITs/AIMS etc for next 5 years.
\ The way new IITs and AIMS’ are
announced by every new govt., very soon we would have more IITs than the total
no. of faculties put together. Put a blanket ban on new govt. institutions for
next five years till we consolidate what we have and make them more vibrant.
6. Set-up Just ONE Central University awarding
Degrees on Skills and Every Institute to mandatorily offer at least 10 different
Skilling courses in Line with NSDC.
NSDC is a great initiative but to make it work on a
large scale, set up just one university for skilling and make it mandatory for
all these colleges to offer at least 10 such courses suiting local conditions.
Use the college infrastructure to setup additional facilities for hands on
skilling on this. Make it mandatory for every graduate to pick up at least two
skills apart from the traditional university course the subject is enrolled
into.
Allow companies to offer skilling courses online to
anyone on the platform who wishes to get involved.
7. Allow Corporate World to take over Colleges
and investments in improving the colleges to be considered as CSR.
Allow all the investments done by
corporate in acquiring the institutes and building additional infrastructure and
Research and Development facilities as CSR for the first 3-5 years.
Provide Tax incentives to these
Corporate entities on creation of IP.
8. Let Market decide the Salaries of Faculty.
Let Market decide the salaries of
faculty and not the sixth or seventh pay commission. In a company when my boss
decides my compensation how can govt. interfere in what a private college
offers as salary to its faculty.
9. Incentivise corporate world to depute
executives to go back to Institutions as faculty under CSR besides, allowing
Foreigners to join as Faculty in Colleges.
Incentivise all the companies to
depute their executives to join as faculty for 2-3 years as sabbatical under
CSR. Besides, allow anyone from anywhere to come and compete and be the best
faculty in the best institution.
10. Rank Institutes only on one Bench Mark, OUT
COME and not OUTPUT.
Today the guidelines for setting
up institute are so rigid that it stifles even the institutes with great vision
and good intentions. Measure the institutes only through outcomes and not
output. The simple matrices for OUT COME could be on campus placements,
Research papers published, Patents filed, PHDs completed etc.
Optimism emanates from peak of pessimism if the passion,
compassion doesn’t still run out of fuel. While
starting the note on a negative
way, I still remain positive about once the land of knowledge conceived and
created
by our sages can regain its past glories if some of the above sweeping initiatives
are taken in a planned, phased yet urgent manner.
